THE EDGE: Our cricket tipster The Edge previews Wednesday’s Hundred format match between Birmingham Phoenix v Southern Brave with a recommended BETDAQ bet.

Birmingham Phoenix v Southern Brave

MATCH OVERVIEW:

It’s been an exciting start to The Hundred this season, and we make our first stop in Birmingham on Wednesday as Birmingham Phoenix take on Southern Brave at Edgbaston. After this game, we’ll loop back around to each of the grounds again, and that should make trading a little easier on BETDAQ Betting Exchange as we get a better read on conditions. Although they will have home advantage here, Birmingham Phoenix are up against it here – Southern Brave are reigning Champions and they started this season so impressively. They took Welsh Fire apart in the first game last week, winning with 31 balls to spare – quite a big margin given the game is only 100 balls!

James Vince produced a brilliant innings in the chase with 71 runs off 41 balls. He finished not out too which will be a huge boost for his confidence going forward. With the captain in superb form and the side looking very balance, they will be a big force again. When I look at the Southern Brave squad it’s not overly impressive; but you have to say the squad all know their roles very well and they work together very well as a team. As we know in these franchise leagues, that is half the battle! There’s also no point having a hugely flashy side, and then losing half the team to International duty!

Birmingham Phoenix didn’t play too badly in their opening fixture – they lost what “could have” been a close game in the sense that they were always behind given they produced a under par score but they did take an early wicket in Malan and gave themselves a chance. I feel Moeen Ali and Liam Livingstone are a massive part of their side, and I’d worry for them if the two England stars fail. The rest of the side doesn’t look too strong, but Imran Tahir leads the attack.

WEATHER AND PITCH WATCH:

We’re in the middle of a heatwave in the UK again, so beware of the wickets getting slow and low. I don’t think the ECB will want those type of wickets, so I expect the groundsmen to have the wicket very good for cricket; however with the sun baking down it’s likely we do see spin at some stage. As we all know, Edgbaston is usually a good place to be a batsman. We’ve had some massive scores here in the T20 Blast this season. We had four games here last season, with the first inning scores reading; 144/6 (chased), 144/6 again (chased) , 172/3 (chased) and 184/5 (won). As you can see, the side who bats first are under pressure for a reasonably high score. I would expect the batsmen to be on top and pretty high scoring conditions.

RECOMMENDED BET:

We have our first big favourites in the shape of Southern Brave here. They are trading around 1.7, and although they could start the shortest SP of the tournament to date, I still feel that they are worth backing at the odds. This Birmingham Phoenix side look poor to me, and I’m happy to take them on. I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see them finish last – as I said above, they really need Ali and Livingstone to fire with the bat – if they don’t then it’s bust in my opinion. Although Tahir is an excellent bowler, he can go for runs and he doesn’t have much support in this attack. Southern Brave are just a side who do everything really well, and they will be much too strong for Birmingham Phoenix here.

The Edge Says:
Three points win Southern Brave to beat Birmingham Phoenix at 1.7 with Betdaq Exchange.

View the market here -> https://betdaq.biz/BirSou

IN-RUNNING STRATEGY:

I don’t rate Birmingham Phoenix, so I wouldn’t recommend being on them for long. Apart from Moeen Ali or Liam Livingstone, I really don’t like their batting. Although I expect some very good batting conditions, I still wouldn’t be fully happy on their batters outside of the big two England stars. That’s the opposite with Southern Brave – if they bat first I would expect a very big score against the Birmingham Phoenix attack. I’d be very happy to be against the Birmingham bowling whether it’s first or second innings – I actually feel this game will be one way traffic.