daily fantasy sports articles

The third game of the BBL season takes place at Kardinia Park as the defending champion Renegades take on the surprising 1-0 Thunder.

First of all, along with our famous  FREE Cheat Sheets and Data Tools in our Data Tools section, new for the BBL09 season, Daily Fantasy Rankings presents the Draftstars Lineup Builder! Using our Data Tools and Projections you will be able to quickly build and import BBL teams into Draftstars by using the CSV upload. Access the Builder including tutorials on how the builder works by clicking the banner below.

Draftstars have posted a $20,000 contest for a $15 entry, as well as a $1,500 Mini and even a $200 Single Entry contest for a $10 buy-in. Moneyball are offering a $7,000 contest for a $15 entry as well as a $1,000 guarantee on their $2 contest.

The BBL heads to Geelong for just the fourth time in its history and this will be the first of two games at GMHBA Stadium this season. The Renegades will be hoping to win the toss after back to back heavy defeats in chases against the Heat and Strikers. In January, the Bash Brothers (Lynn & McCullum) ran riot as the Heat amassed 192/4 and the ‘Gades fell well short, bowled out for 91. The other result in 2019 saw the Strikers bat first and make 158/6 against ‘Gades 126/9. So stacking the batting first team could be a nice strategy, especially with the shorter boundaries available at this venue. Looking at the weather in Geelong, the conditions will be much more pleasant on Thursday after a temperature of 39 and an expected high of 43 on Friday! It will be cold at night so the team batting second may struggle to chase down a big score.

We have full team previews for BBL09, so you can read up on any of the Melbourne Renegades and Sydney Thunder players you may not be familiar with prior to building your lineups.

Firstly, what a performance by the underdog Sydney Thunder in Game 1 of the BBL! They dominated the more fancied Heat in every aspect and fully deserved the victory. Callum Ferguson played a true captain's knock with 73 off 44 in the Thunder’s 172/6 total. Alex Ross and Chris Green also provided excellent supporting roles in the middle order with 30 and 25 runs respectively. Facing the Heat’s big hitters, the Thunder used their spin trio to great effect. Overall, they took 6 wickets with spinners and Cook removed both dangerous openers (Banton & Bryant). Green also followed up his batting performance with 2 wickets and a nice economy rate of 4.75. 

The Renegades will be the defending champions for the first time in their BBL history after successfully taking down arch-rivals the Stars in the final last season. Their chances of going back to back immediately increased with the prized signature of Shaun Marsh from the Scorchers. He’s out of favour with the Aussie selectors at the moment, which means he should be available for the entire tournament. With Marsh and Finch atop the order, getting early wickets will be the key against this Renegades team to expose the middle order. They won’t have Mohammad Nabi for the first half of the season so we’ll see how unknown English import, Richard Geeson fairs. Marcus Harris couldn’t find a spot in the 13 squad for this clash, otherwise the ‘Gades have a similar feel to them as last season. Their bowling stocks are strong once again with Richardson, Boyce and Gurney. Then you have the experience of Dan Christian with bat or ball.

There’s one area the Renegades will be looking to improve on and that is their form in Geelong after a 1-2 record in their 3 BBL outings. As mentioned earlier, they’ve been well beaten by the Heat and Strikers at this venue in January and they’d love to overturn that record in this one. They are the early favourites with the bookies but the Thunder will be very confident of another upset after beating the Heat at the Gabba. 

This season, our famous FREE Data Tools have returned for BBL09. We have also expanded our tools to both Draftstars and Moneyball (New!) fantasy sites for the tournament.

Access our FREE Data Tools for Thursday's BBL Matchup here

Batsmen

Love it – Shaun Marsh ($17,800, Draftstars)

First game in the Red for Marsh after switching from the Scorchers and we believe he’ll be keen to start well. He owns an excellent average of 49.48 in 37 BBL games and comes off 2 hundreds in his last 4 innings of Shield Cricket. With a ceiling of 133 points (the highest on the slate), he could produce a similar knock to Ferguson in Game 1.

Don’t Love it – Alex Hales ($16,700, Draftstars)

Not a great start to the BBL season for Hales with a soft dismissal at the Gabba from the short ball. So the Renegades should look to use a similar tactic in this matchup and that makes Hales just too expensive at the moment.

Who Knows? – Sam Harper ($13,100, Draftstars)

It looks like Sam Harper will open the batting with Finchy and that gives him a good opportunity to take on the Thunder’s pretty average pace attack of Sams/Tremain. Harper can be very hit or miss as an aggressive top order batsman. But if he does get going on Thursday, he’ll be worth the risk.

Bowlers

Love it – Chris Green ($16,500, Draftstars)

Hard to look past Green after his efforts in Brisbane. 25 off 17 with the bat and 2 wickets the ball gave him the top score of the night with 140 points on Draftstars. He should be able to keep his economy rate down against the Renegades middle order and his batting is very handy in the late stages of an innings. So he can be safely placed in either BAT or BOW positions.

Don’t Love it – Daniel Sams ($16,000, Draftstars)

Fair to say Daniel Sams had a shocker at the Gabba on Tuesday night. It started with a first ball duck and Chris Green could really leapfrog him into the 6th spot for this clash. Then with the new ball, he gave up 4 sixes and a huge economy rate of 14.57 in 2.2 overs. He’ll face a tough test against Finch, Marsh and Harper at the top of the order as they’ll be looking to get on top before the spinners come on.

Who Knows? – Richard Gleeson ($13,100, Draftstars)

The English import is the definition of who knows. He’s been brought in to the ‘Gades squad at the last minute after Pakistan selected Shinwari for International duty. In his 42 T20s matches, he’s taken 43 wickets at an average of 24.27. So he should get 2-4 overs in the middle stages and hopefully he can grab a few wickets to hit value.