The Melbourne Renegades will be looking to bounce back from a wooden spoon performance last season as their BBL10 campaign gets underway on Saturday night against the Scorchers. As usual, we have you covered with a full preview for the match as well as our favourite prop bets below.
BBL10 Melbourne Renegades vs Perth Scorchers Betting Tips
Blundstone Arena, Saturday, 7.15pm
Melbourne Renegades Squad: Aaron Finch (c), Cameron Boyce, Zak Evans, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Sam Harper, Marcus Harris, Mackenzie Harvey, Jon Holland, Shaun Marsh, Mohammad Nabi, James Pattinson, Kane Richardson, Will Sutherland, Mitch Perry, Beau Webster, Imran Tahir, Noor Ahmad, Josh Lalor, Jack Prestwidge, Rilee Rossouw
Perth Scorchers Squad: Mitch Marsh (C), Ashton Agar, Fawad Ahmad, Cameron Bancroft, Jason Behrendorff, Joe Clarke, Cameron Gannon, Cameron Green, Liam Guthrie, Aaron Hardie, Josh Inglis, Matt Kelly, Liam Livingstone, Colin Munro, Joel Paris, Kurtis Patterson, Jhye Richardson, Corey Rocchiccioli (replacement), Jason Roy, Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye, Sam Whiteman
Match Prediction
Due to COVID-19 restrictions still having an effect on Melbourne based sports, the game between the Renegades and Scorchers will be played down in Tasmania at Blundstone Arena. We saw the Hurricanes and Sixers do battle from Blundstone in the opening game of BBL10 on Thursday night and the game seemed to slightly favour the bowlers, early in the innings before becoming a batting pitch in the late overs. There was 340 runs scored between the two teams, which is about standard in the modern day T20 match, so we don’t think either bat or ball will have a significant advantage here.
In terms of the teams, both the Renegades and Scorchers will likely go into the game near full strength. The brief respite between the international limited overs schedule and the Test series against India beginning means that even the likes of Cameron Green for the Scorchers and Shaun Marsh for the Renegades should be available despite both being in contention for Test selection.
Without much else to go on other than pure strength of squad, you have to lean slightly towards the Scorchers here. After winning the title in BBL08, the Renegades took a massive downward turn last season and haven’t done a lot to rectify their wooden spoon in terms of strengthening their squad. On the other hand, the Scorchers could boast a full XI of players who have represented the country before, led by the best pace bowling attack in the BBL with the likes of Andrew Tye, Jyhe Richardson, Jason Behrendorff and Cameron Green in the mix.
With no form to go on, hard to look
Renegades Prop Bet
Hard to believe that Marsh is the fourth favourite to top the Renegades runscorer list here. He is arguably the in-form batsman in the country at the moment, and his potential recall to the Australian Test side in the wake of a host of injuries is testament to that.
The West Australian will be playing against his old side here, so will have extra incentive to perform well and while playing for WA in the Sheffield Shield this season, he left hander plundered 485 runs in six innings at a ridiculous average of 97.0. Great value to top the Gades batsman on Satruday night.
Marsh Top MEL Runscorer
$4.50
Scorchers Prop Bet
Spinners played little part in the Hurricanes vs Sixers game at Blundstone on Thursday night. Steve O’Keefe bowled his full allotment of overs but went at an economy rate of 10.00 in the process while for the Hurricanes, it was Johan Botha and D’Arcy Short who bowled just two overs each.
We expect the same to be the case on Saturday night, which doesn’t really narrow a lot down for us given that the Scorchers possess such a good pace bowling attack, however, Jhye Richardson looks to be the pick of the bunch on historical form. In just one career game at Blundstone, Richardson claimed 4/19 off four overs as the Scorchers stormed home to a 77 run win over the Hurricanes last season. Back the firey youngster to top the wicket takers list for the Scorchers at good odds.
Richardson Top PER Wicket Taker
$4.20