Adelaide Strikers vs Melbourne Renegades Betting Tips & Predictions

Adelaide Strikers’ Recent Form

Having done all the hard work with the ball, the Strikers made a real mess of their chase against this lot.

They started pretty well with Matt Short and Jake Weatherald hitting early boundaries and looked very much on course to get there easily.

But those two got out, Zaheer Khan bowled beautifully for the Renegades to claim 3-23, Ryan Gibson retired hurt and all of a sudden, they had it all to do.

They came close but ultimately fell two runs short, not being able to get just nine off the final over.

Earlier, all of Rashid Khan, George Garton, Daniel Worrall and Wes Agar were economical.

Skipper Peter Siddle less so, but he did still take three wickets.

Melbourne Renegades’s Recent Form

Their win against the Strikers on Tuesday was just the sort of match they were losing last season. A tight game that could have gone either way and one in which they ended up winning.

Whether that’s a sign of things to come or was just a one-off that the Strikers lost the game more than the Renegades won it, remains to be seen.

Their batting still looks weak till Shaun Marsh, Aaron Finch and Nic Madinson return and they didn’t get enough runs.

But man-of-the-match Zaheer Khan, Kane Richardson and James Pattinson all bowled well to defend a total that was par at best.

They’ll be delighted to have won the game because they won’t win too many more playing like that against better sides than the Strikers.

Venue & conditions

165 (defended), 146 (not defended), 171 (defended), 177 (not defended), 149 (not defended), 197 (defended), 232 (defended), 159 (defended), 115 (not defended) and 181 (defended).

Those were the first innings scores here at the Adelaide Oval last season in the BBL and whether they were, or not, defended.

So that’s a first innings average of 169.2 and six out of 10 won by the side batting first.

But these aren’t great batting units and it could pay to go under 170 first innings runs, which is in line with last year’s average.

Both skippers may decide to go against the grain in terms of what’s normally done in T20 and decide to bat first.

Strikers v Renegades Winner Prediction

Recommended Bet: Back the Melbourne Renegades @ 2.01 with 10CRIC

It’s interesting that the bookies are making the Strikers quite strong favourites here.

That’s presumably based on the head-to-head (9-5 to the Strikers) and the fact that the Renegades have been so poor the last couple of seasons, finishing rock bottom in the last two editions.

That Adelaide are at home and that the Renegades are missing their top three in the batting, assuming Finch doesn’t play, may have a lot to do with it as well.

That’s all well and good but the Strikers have their own problems.

They’re missing the only real quality batsmen they have in Carey and Head and in their absence, the best they can hope for is to bat first, crawl to a par score and hope that the likes of Khan, Siddle, Agar and co can defend it.

Because I wouldn’t fancy the Strikers to chase anything above 160 here.

The Renegades will have taken great confidence from the win the other day and though the Strikers’ bowlers are their strong suit, a line-up of the Renegades containing Richardson, Nabi, Topley and Zaheer Khan is certainly to be respected as well.

So go with the slight outsiders, who are more confident after that win the other day.

Here’s our 10CRIC review, by the way, where you can see why they’re one of our recommended sites.

Today’s Adelaide Strikers vs Melbourne Renegades Hot Bet

Hot Bet: Back Wes Agar to be Strikers Top Bowler @ 7.64 with 10CRIC

Wes Agar had an excellent season last year and was right up there with the top wicket-takers in last year’s Big Bash. He bowled with pace and accuracy and his strike rate was superb.

All those were reasons as to why I picked him to be Strikers top bowler for the season at very reasonable odds.

He didn’t take any wickets the other day and only bowled three overs; not that he’d done much wrong up to that point.

As ever, Rashid Khan is the man to beat (odds of 5.34) but as I explained in that article, a lot of batsmen are very defensive against him these days, so he takes less wickets than he used to.

Siddle (7.64) took thee the other day and is always a treaty but those odds on Agar are just too good to turn down.

Strikers vs Renegades fun statistics

Time to round things off with some fun facts ahead of the game.

• Jake Weatherald of the Strikers is the top batsman across both teams in this fixture, scoring 277 runs in it.
• Kane Richardson is the top wicket-taker, claiming 16 wickets in it.
• Richardson (Renegades) and Siddle (Strikers) were a rare case of both sides having fast bowlers as captains on Tuesday and it will happen here again.