The 27th match of the BBL season takes place at the Adelaide Oval, with the Adelaide Strikers (3-2-1) taking on the Sydney Sixers (5-2). This is the first game of a Double Header in the BBL today, with this game scheduled to start at 1540 (AEDT).

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 $10,000 contest for a $15 entry, as well as a $1,000 Mini and even a $200 Single Entry contest for a $10 buy-in. A Double Header contest is also available with the "Player Swap" feature enabled. Moneyball are offering a $4,000 contest for a $15 entry as well as a $500 guarantee on their $2 contest.

Adelaide has a median total of 160, with an average of six wickets lost. Batting in the first five and last five at least seem to be similar given that the mean Powerplay Runs and also 15-20 over runs are 45 and 49 respectively. Conserving wickets up top is critical, however, as the average total when no powerplay wickets are lost is 177 – dropping 25 runs to 152 if batting teams lose two in the powerplay. Interestingly, despite being known as a good batting track, chasing teams have only won 41.5% at this venue.

The Sixers are (weirdly) second from the top of the table, winning five from seven. Their line-up has never fired in unison, but someone has always put their hand up and played a match-defining innings or got a wicket at a clutch time. Ben Dwarshuis has been incredibly solid opening bowler with his hit-the-deck style, and Lloyd Pope’s transformation from BBL bunny to middle order tyrant (slight exaggeration) has been impressive. Curran has been below par with an economy rate of 9.70 this tournament but has more than made up for it with his lower order hitting.

The Sixers batting unit is a similar story. There have been two standouts (Phillippe and Curran) while the rest have been pretty average. Vince has been extremely disappointing, and as the international, will look to step it up as the season goes on. Both him, Dan Hughes and Henriques (who is OUT today) are averaging between 22 and 24, and will need to step up if the Sixers want to challenge in the finals.

The Strikers have the look of a team that don’t really know their best line-up. The batting order has been consistently chopped and changed, and will continue to do so as Carey departs for India in the imminent future. Harry Nielsen has been called up to the squad, and could bat anywhere between three and eight. The easy solution would be to swap in for Carey at three but it depends on what type of player he is. Salt and Weatherald are a potent combination at the top of the order when they come off but the boom or bust nature of their batting has the potential to heap a huge amount of pressure on the guys below if they fail regularly. 

The bowling also has a lot of weak links. Khan is an obvious beast but you have to get through another sixteen overs and there are just too many holes. Having to get multiple overs from Conway/Stanlake/Agar won’t win you games at this level and I think the Strikers are going to struggle moving forward. I don’t necessarily love the Sixers but I think that they’re a better team than the Strikers.

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

Batsmen

Love it – Justin Avendano ($9,800, Draftstars)

Picking Avendano is a bit of a no-lose scenario. If he does well, then you have a player at sub $10k that’s freed up a lot of salary cap. If he doesn’t come off, then he’s probably not going to cost you a lot because the majority of teams would probably have him. Sometimes simple is best!

Don’t Love it – Harry Nielsen ($9,600, Draftstars)

Cameron White is written up here and with his eventual exclusion from the squad, I am at loss to put in a Batsman in this position! As I mentioned before, Nielsen's batting number (if picked) could be anywhere from 3-8 and I cannot trust without a game under his belt.  

Who Knows? – James Vince ($17,000, Draftstars)

Vince has scored 146 runs in six innings at an average of 24.33 and a strike rate of 125.86. I don’t think you can call that awful, but given his projected output of around 30, it’s still short of what he’s capable of. You’re paying through the nose for that potential but the flip side of that is that he’s not likely to have a high ownership percentage. Could it be a risk worth taking?

 

Bowlers

Love it – Tom Curran ($18,100, Draftstars)

What I love about Tom is that he has so many point-scoring avenues. He is (despite his returns this year) an excellent and accurate death bowler who possesses an arsenal of slower balls. He’s also scored 99 runs this year at a strike rate of 186 (hello bonus points!). His ceiling is phenomenal while also having no major downside. If anything, his economy has to mean-revert at some point. 

Don’t Love it – Harry Conway ($11,300, Draftstars)

You just can’t pick him when there are better options to upgrade/downgrade to. Even at $11k, he’s still awkwardly priced. He could randomly pick up a wicket (anyone could, I guess) but selecting Conway is not a +EV move. Billy Stanlake is almost the same price, which leads me to…

Who Knows? – Billy Stanlake ($11,300, Draftstars)

I’m definitely not saying that Stanlake is any sort of gun – because he’s definitely not. In fact, I think he’s generally a rather horrid t20 bowler. He bowls gun-barrel straight back-of-a-length balls with zero pace variation and then wonders why he gets taken apart. The allure of Stanlake is that, when the wicket suits, he can occasionally produce some incredible spells. He’s played six matches this year, picked up two wickets and gone at nine an over but he’s never far away from picking up 3/13 in four. The risk/reward at so low a price is too much to ignore.

 

 

 

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