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PREVIEW
Adelaide Strikers will take on Sydney Thunder in the 28th match of the BBL 2021/22 on Friday. Both teams will be eager to finish the year with a win and keep themselves in a good mood for the new year. Adelaide Strikers’ horrible form continues in this tournament as they have lost 4 matches in a row. They still lack big hitters in the middle-order, which is the main area of concern for them. With a solitary win, they are at the 7th spot in the standings with 7 points.
Sydney Thunder, on the other hand, defeated the mighty Perth Scorchers by 34 runs on Tuesday to claim their third win in this tournament. Jason Sangha is playing exceptionally well at the number 3 spot. Unlike Adelaide Strikers, they bat deep and still need to be consistent. They are placed at the fourth spot in the standings with 13 points. Sydney Thunder are placed at the 5th spot in the Big Bash League 2021-22 points table with 2 wins and 3 losses from their 5 matches of the league. The team has 9 points.
Alex Ross is the top run-scorer for Sydney Thunder with 175 runs at a strike rate of 143. He has struck 14 fours and 6 sixes. Sam Billings has also made 169 runs at a strike rate of 142.
Tanveer Sangha has been the best bowler for Sydney Thunder and has picked up 8 wickets while bowling at an average of 15 and an economy rate of 7.45.
Adelaide Strikers are placed at the 7th spot in the Big Bash League 2021-22 points table with one win and 5 losses from their 6 matches of the league. The team has 7 points.
Matthew Short is the top run-scorer for Adelaide Strikers with 156 runs at a strike rate of 160. He has struck 8 fours and 10 sixes. JW Wells has also made 155 runs at a strike rate of 130.
Rashid Khan has been the best bowler for Adelaide Strikers and has picked up 10 wickets while bowling at an average of 17 and an economy rate of 7.12.
ADELAIDE STRIKERS
Adelaide Strikers were never the favorites to lift the title when the tournament started, but they were also not the side expected to stay near the bottom of the points table. Despite having some of the stalwarts of the format, the Strikers never managed to get the consistency they would have hoped for. They are now standing in a tricky situation and will desperately need to win a few matches on the trot.
As it currently stands on the ladder, the Strikers are placed at the seventh position with just one win from six matches. In addition to their poor position at the ladder, they have an exceedingly poor net run rate of -0.525, which might well prove to be a factor if they start moving up the ladder.
It has been four matches since the Strikers last registered a win in the tournament and they might be running a bit low on morale. It was apparent in the last match too as despite scoring a reasonably good total of 175 runs on the board, Hobart Hurricanes chased their total down with seven wickets remaining and nine balls to spare.
The state of Strikers can be well seen by the fact that their bowlers have been short of where they needed to be twice in two matches now. That is rather surprising because their bowling is their stronger suite that contains the likes of Wes Agar, Peter Siddle, and Rashid Khan.
On paper, the Strikers have some clear limitations that have been haunting them since the last few matches. The absence of Alex Carey and Travis Head has put an excessive toll on the rest of their batsmen and that has proved to be a telling factor. Their bowling now seems to be far from their best and that made their problem worse. Going forward, the Strikers will have to be on their toes and if they are able to play to their potential, beating them is going to be remarkably difficult.
SYDNEY THUNDER
Up until a couple of days ago, Sydney Thunder were having a pretty ordinary tournament, but their recent win over Perth Scorchers has announced very loud and clear about how dangerous they can be on their day. Even though they still are in a pretty delicate position as far as the points table is concerned, they will be a lot more confident going into their next match.
Sydney Thunder didn’t have the kind of start they were looking for, but they have certainly gained some momentum with some favorable outings in their last few matches. From a total of six matches played in the competition so far, Sydney Thunder have won six and lost three. Thanks to those wins and a few bash boost points, Sydney Thunder have a total of 13 points coupled with a terrific net run rate of 0.442.
Thunder are coming off two wins out of their last three matches and will be looking to extend their run. Having said that, they have still not been at their best and there are a lot of things they’ll need to improve as we move towards the business end of the tournament. It was a strong collective effort from the Thunder to beat Scorchers as their batsmen and bowlers both performed to perfection. Jason Sangha and Sam Billings both scored a vital fifty each to push Scorchers to a total of 200.
Chasing such a big total was never going to be easy even for the Scorchers, but the way Thunder bowled proved to be the difference between the two sides. Nathan McAndrew picked up three wickets and Saqib Mahmood and Chris Green contributed with a couple of wickets each to restrict Scorchers to just 166.
All in all, Sydney Thunder have a decent side but will need to work on a few areas. With Alex Hales and Matthew Gilkes not contributing consistently enough, their top-order looks a little fragile. If they can take care of that and the rest of their players play to their potential, getting past them is going to be incredibly difficult.
ADELAIDE STRIKERS VS SYDNEY THUNDERS TOSS PREDICTION
Although batting second is the more favored choice in the shortest format of the game, that hasn’t really worked at Adelaide in the competition up until now. Both matches done here were won by the team batting first and that too by quite some margins. Considering that and the fact that the surface is expected to assist spinners more and more as the match progresses, we expect the captain winning the toss to bat first.
PITCH AND CONDITIONS
Adelaide Oval is one of the most iconic venues in Australia and is known to assist spinners traditionally. Having said that, we haven’t seen that happen a lot in the two matches played here. The most recent of those two matches proved to be a high-scoring match and that is exactly how we expect the surface to behave in this upcoming contest too. The weather gods have been kind at Adelaide with the sun shining bright and temperatures hovering consistently in the mid-twenties. Largely because of the weather we have seen, we expect the surface to be a lot drier than we saw in the last two matches played here and the spinners will likely get some assistance. Having said that, batsmen once set will relish batting here. Keeping all of that into consideration, the team batting first would want to put a total of at least 180 runs here.
MATCH DETAILS:
Adelaide Strikers vs Sydney Thunder, Match 28
Venue: Adelaide Oval, Adelaide
Date & Time: December 31st, at 1:45 PM IST and 6:45 PM Local Time
Pitch Report: The surface here at Adelaide Oval offers massive assistance for the batters to score runs. It’s a flat surface and pacers can extract more pace out of it.
PROBABLE PLAYING XI
ADELAIDE STRIKERS:
- Matthew Short
- Jake Weatherald
- Matt Renshaw
- Jonathan Wells
- Harry Nielson (wk)
- Thomas Kelly
- George Garton
- Rashid Khan
- Wes Agar
- Fawad Ahmed
- Peter Siddle (c)
- Matthew Gilkes
- Alex Hales
- Jason Sangha
- Sam Billings (wk)
- Alex Ross
- Daniel Sams
- Ben Cutting
- Nathan McAndrew
- Chris Green (c)
- Saqib Mahmood
- Tanveer Sangha
