This match shapes as a really interesting contest, on account of the Thunder surely not having anything to lose, and the Renegades now playing out the rest of the regular season fixtures without one of their biggest stars, England ‘keeper-bat Jos Buttler.
Australian ODI squad members Aaron Finch and James Pattinson are also likely to remain match-by match propositions from here on, though both have been released to play this game after Australia’s big win in the 1st ODI at the MCG on Sunday.
The Renegades will go some distance to filling Butter’s shoes with the addition of West Indian allrounder Dwayne Bravo for the last two games of BBL|03, but if they are to repeat their Semi-Final appearance of last summer, they’re going to have to find a win against the Thunder without Bravo.
The Thunder welcome back Tillakaratne Dilshan pending a fitness test, a huge boost for the embattled top-order.
Fast bowler Luke Feldman also returns, providing another quick option for Mike Hussey.
Key Battle: the Thunder v their self-confidence
All the Thunder keep hearing about is the growing number of games it’s been since they last won a BBL match, and so the big battle in this match is going to be whether that number and all the accompanying talk is getting to the players.
After some of the fielding and shot selection, and the horrendous collapse against Hobart, the easy conclusion to reach is that it certainly is.
Simply, the young Thunder players need to forget about it all, listen to their seasoned pros, and just get about there and play the way they all can.
Dark Horse: Tom Cooper
With Aaron Finch now on national duty and quite likely to miss some of the Renegades’ remaining games, it becomes vitally important that the remaining Renegades take on some of his load.
There might be no-one better equipped, or in better form to replicate Finch’s fireworks than Cooper, who is now the Renegades’ leading run-scorer behind Finch and Buttler.
The Renegades need plenty more runs from Cooper if they’re to remain on track for the Big Semi-Finals.
Last Time
December 14, 2012 @ ANZ Stadium: in an all too-familiar Thunder tale, top order stars weren’t capitalised on, and a middle-order collapse to follow meant that at 7/60 in the 14th over, even making 100 looked an uphill battle.
Some late innings fireworks from Ryan Carter (18*) and Chris Tremain (37*) did just that and then some, getting the Thunder to 7/116 from their 20.
Despite losing regular wickets themselves, the Renegades were never really threatened, with Aaron Finch and Ben Rohrer the main contributors, as the reached 5/117 in the 19th over.
Teams
Renegades: Aaron Finch (c), Fawad Ahmed, Tom Cooper, Alex Doolan, Matthew Gale, Dan Harris, Michael Hill, Muttiah Muralidaran, Peter Nevill, Aaron O’Brien, James Pattinson, Nathan Rimmington, Ben Rohrer
Thunder: Mike Hussey (c), Daniel Hughes, Jason Floros, Dirk Nannes, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Usman Khawaja, Ryan Carters, Andrew Tye, Ajantha Mendis, Gurinder Sandhu, Kurtis Patterson, Chris Tremain, Luke Feldman.
Facts and Figures
Nathan Rimmington has been a standout for the Renegades pace attack, well inside the top ten wicket-takers for the season (8 wickets from five matches). In BBL|02, he took a total of 8 wickets from his nine matches for the competition.
Mike Hussey and Aaron Finch are the only cricketers to hit Etihad Stadium’s roof during a match.
Hussey hit it during an ODI in 2005, while Finch hit it during BBL|02 in a game against the Hobart Hurricanes, and again this season on January 4 against the Melbourne Stars.
Ironically, this year’s monster netted Finch six runs because of a rule change made after his strike last season, where the rules at the time meant it was declared a dead ball!
Usman Khawaja was a welcome return to the Thunder squad on Saturday, on having missed three matches due to injury.
He is the Thunder’s leading run scorer with 428 runs at 30.6 from 16 matches over three seasons of the Big Bash League, even eclipsing their former marquee man, Chris Gayle.
If there’s a stat the Thunder can cling to, it’s that their average total made in their six BBL|03 games is more than Hobart’s average total conceded (139.3 v 123.6 runs per match).
Equally so, while the Thunder have conceded 161.5 runs per game on average, the Hurricanes have only made 127 runs per match across their five matches.
It’s a small detail, but it might be the detail that gives the Thunder the confidence to win.
Broadcast: from 7:30pm AEDT on Channel Ten, and on Fairfax Radio Network.
Twitter: #BBL03
This preview was first published on the Big Bash League website under a new arrangement between The Roar and the BBL. Read the original article here.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Maybe they should to an IPL style player auction where every few seasons all the players go back into the bucket and each of the teams has to bid on the players and try to build the best squad based on an equal salary cap. The difficulty of that is that it stops fans being able to connect with players long term as you don't have the same players in your team for long periods of time, but it helps keep the competition closer and stop the same teams from constantly dominating.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
The Sixers play out of the SCG and the Thunder play out of the Olympic Stadium at Homebush. From Western Sydney it's a long way into the SCG and a lot closer to Homebush. I believe the distance between Etihad Stadium and the MCG isn't that far, so geographic differences wouldn't define the teams, but they definitely do in Sydney.
Praveen
Guest
Khawaja and Dilshan were great but mendis was also great with the bowl, e kept it very tight
Casey Novak
Roar Rookie
Yes that was the opinion of the fans around the ground!! Also do you remeber Brett when about two years ago, Cam Borgas signing to the Thunder was a massive coup, and he was a T20 gun for hire...... now he cant even make Thunders best XI
Casey Novak
Roar Rookie
I agree that Shield Runs dont carry over and produce T20 runs, and Carters and Rogers last year showed that.
Praveen
Guest
How we did khawaja handle Pattinson, he has improved His game in T20 and 50 overs significantly
Beauty of a geek brains of a bimbo(atgm)
Guest
ST has a sl coach.no wonder why they are strugglin
shastha
Guest
Can thunder open their account today
Greg
Guest
I just called the stadium as we are going too. The roof is open which is kinda madness given the only seats they sell on level 2 face into the sun for the first 30 mins or so. Must be a cost thing because they had no qualms closing the roof and maintaining the temp at 23 degrees when 43k people were in for Renegade v Stars
Brett McKay
Expert
As has been said up above Dingo, Finch and Pattinson haven't played anything like the same amount of,or the same intensity of cricket that Warner and Clarke have...
Nemo ohh ha ha
Guest
West Sydney Thunder ewwww #smashemsixers
Nemo ohh ha ha
Guest
From Sydney's Eastern suburbs and have been sixers since day one.
Nemo ohh ha ha
Guest
Na, he wasn't expected to be in the test team. He has a massive form turn after he was signed for thunder and made the test squad
Matt F
Roar Guru
He made his debut against NZ in November 2011 so he was in the team for a good month before the 1st BBL started, but teams were signing players months before that. When he signed he wasn't considered a test contender at the time. It took an injury to Watson and, from memory, a very good start to the Shield season to get him selected
Matt F
Roar Guru
I imagine the lack of success has made it very difficult to sign players. They can't even really just throw money at players either as the players know that they'll make more if they can play in the CL. Because of this, taking a small pay cut to go to a successful side might be considered to be worth the risk for some players. They might well be into one of those cycles that's hard to break out of. They need better players to have success but need success to get those better players
Matt F
Roar Guru
I think the Thunder were initially going to be called the West Sydney Thunder but dropped the Western bit at some point. I could be wrong on that however. The difference is essentially geography. The Sixers play at the SCG in the East while the Thunder play at ANZ in the West. It's a bit odd that they don't use 'West' but everyone who is interested in Sydney essentially considers them Western Sydney based anyway
jameswm
Guest
Can they put the AC on if the roof is shut? Imagine the bill!!
DingoGray
Roar Guru
I can't under Brett why Pattinson and Finch are released to play.... yet Clarke and Warner are not? I would of thought CA would of release Warner & Clarke and keep Finch and Pattinson out to give the "Chunder" a chance!
jameswm
Guest
I think Whiteman's the one. He played opposite Wade the other day. The difference in quality of the glovework was staggering.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
While there were some people who questioned Warner's place in the test side at the time, I think it was pretty clear after the end of the Ashes in England that it would have been highly unlikely that Warner wouldn't have played in the home Ashes series. If he came out and averaged single figures in the Ryobi cup and Sheffield Shield then he may have, but any remotely decent performances were always going to be enough. And I always saw his ommision from the India squad as more about focusing on getting him right for the Ashes than because they didn't consider him part of the best Australian ODI team. But considering the team they've assembled, you have to think that there are either some people in there that they've significantly overpaid for, or they were simply beaten to the better players by all the other teams.