THE HUNDRED 💯: Our cricket tipster The Edge previews Monday’s Hundred format game between Birmingham Phoenix v Welsh Fire with a recommended BETDAQ bet.

Hundred Game 19
Birmingham Phoenix v Welsh Fire

MATCH OVERVIEW:

Another week starts at The Hundred and we start the action this week with Birmingham Phoenix against Welsh Fire. There’s only two points between the sides, but Welsh fire have slid right down the table recently and they’re currently sat in second last. They made a very bright start to the competition but have lost three in a row now. Birmingham Phoenix have won three of their five games, and at the moment it looks like they are growing in confidence as the tournament goes on. Once again, we should have a good game for trading on BETDAQ Betting Exchange.

There’s no doubt that Welsh Fire need to turn things around quickly. Obviously it hasn’t been easy for them as they have lost some of their stars to the England v India series and replacing someone like Jonny Bairstow is nearly impossible – especially given the form he started the tournament in. Maybe in future years, England won’t schedule International cricket during The Hundred – just like India during the IPL. Batting has been an obvious problem for Welsh Fire in their last two games, while it looks like Birmingham Phoenix are in flying form with the bat. They managed to chase down 172/3 last Wednesday which is clearly very impressive given this has been a low scoring tournament in general so far.

As always, we can expect a reasonably close game as the format lends itself to that approach, but I feel Birmingham Phoenix have an excellent chance of winning here. Welsh Fire look in poor form with the bat, and the door is open for a Birmingham win.

WEATHER AND PITCH WATCH:

Birmingham Phoenix chased down that 172/3 here, and the pitch at Edgbaston is always generally good these days. It’s always entertaining cricket, but it generally favours the batsman. With 172 chased down so easily, it’s easy to see the team batting first putting themselves under pressure and aiming too high. They can easily fall short as firing from ball one is never good, as we have seen so far at the tournament. But judging off that last game it looks like you want to be aiming for 180ish. We have had a huge amount of showers in the UK over the last few days, and watching the radar is a must here. How many showers did we get during the England v India Test!?

RECOMMENDED BET:

A lot of markets have been pretty even at The Hundred so far. You can fully understand this, as it’s a new format but also the shorter format should bring teams close together. All teams have superstars who can win a game of their own too, but just like when we landed our bet on Southern Brave the weekend, I feel Birmingham Phoenix stand out here. They are a pretty big favourite at 1.72, possibly one of the shortest prices we have had in the competition to date but I feel the 1.72 still looks good value. Welsh Fire are there for the taking at the moment, their batting line-up just isn’t good enough.

The Edge Says:
Three points win Birmingham Phoenix to beat Welsh Fire at 1.72 with BETDAQ Betting Exchange

View the market here -> https://bit.ly/BDQBirWel

IN-RUNNING STRATEGY:

Before doing anything here, I would take 15 balls or so to access conditions. Back in the day I would say three overs, but there aren’t any overs in The Hundred! Another thing to get used to, even though this is Game 23 I still don’t feel comfortable not dealing in overs! I expect a very good batting wicket here, but at the same time I really don’t fancy the Welsh Fire batting, so I would be keen to get against them when batting. Even if they bat first, they can get a reasonably score but nothing Birmingham Phoenix can’t chase down. Birmingham look in excellent form with the bat too, so with good batting conditions they are worth a confident trade when batting.