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Having both registered early wins in the tournament, the Melbourne Renegades and Sydney Sixers will feel confident of a top four finish if they manage to double their points tally at Docklands on Wednesday. Join The Roar for live scores and commentary from 7:10pm (AEDT).
These sides have quite a different lineups. The Sixers squad was laden with allrounders in their comprehensive win over the Hobart Hurricanes. Despite the Hurricanes being dismissed within 16 overs, Sixers captain Moises Henriques used six bowlers and didn’t even feel the need bring himself on.
This heavily contrasts the Renegades lineup as they appear to have an excess of depth with the bat, having chased down 180 without specialist batsmen Tom Beaton and Ben Rohrer being called upon.
It may well be that the opposite of the two sides strength is their weakness, but what the sides do have in common is an explosive top three.
Michael Lumb, Brad Haddin and Nic Maddinson make up the Sixers top three while the Renegades have Chris Gayle, Aaron Finch and Cameron White filling the top spots in their batting line up.
Either trio has the potential to dismantle bowling attacks.
The Renegades in particular with their top three having over 16,000 domestic twenty20 runs between them. As a result of this power up top, the powerplay will make the first six overs even more crucial than usual.
In their second game of the tournament the Sixers were not just sensational in the powerplay with the bat but quickly ended any hopes the Hurricanes may have had with the ball.
This was largely due to Nathan Lyon who took a career-best five wickets as the Hurricanes were skittled for just 91 – a total that could have been much worse had George Bailey not made an unbeaten 62.
Lyon may have taken half his side’s wicket in that game, but he is only one-third of a formidable spin trio the Sixers boast. Steven O’Keefe and Johan Botha are two excellent twenty20 spinners in their own right, as they both have economy rates under seven.
This spin attack will be vital against the Renegades destructive top order. In fact, in the Renegades successful chase against the Heat was both the only bowler immune to the carnage as well as the only spinner used by the Heat.
This is obviously at least in part down to Badree being one of the best twenty20 bowlers in the world, but it did seem that the Renegades batsmen enjoyed things much more when the ball was coming onto the bat.
With fewer quality bowlers to turn to, Aaron Finch may look to apply a five bowler strategy, where every Renegades bowler who bowls gets their full four-over quota.
Finch looked to apply this in the Renegades first outing, but the flaws in the plan were shown when debutant Guy Walker was taken apart in three overs and Chris Gayle had to be brought on.
The Sixers will go into the game knowing, that unless the Renegades change the structure of their lineup, going after one bowler in particular could expose the Renegades lack of bowling depth.
Prediction
With the potential to bowl spin for 12 of their 20 overs, if a spinner friendly pitch is produced in Docklands the Sixers may have the edge. Otherwise, it may be the home ground advantage that gets the Renegades over the line in what has the potential to be a very close match.
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