Adelaide Strikers v Melbourne Renegades Big Bash Tips: Strikers boosted by bating power

• Head and Carey may return

• Renegades lose spin threat

• Back Sixers to win title

Adelaide Strikers v Melbourne Renegades
Tuesday 10 January, 08:40
TV: Live on Sky Sports

Team news

Travis Head and Alex Carey are available for Strikers post Test series with South Africa. Whether this game comes too soon remains to be seen but the hosts are desperate for reinforcements. Head will take over the captaincy, too.

Rasdid Khan has left for South Africa, Peter Siddle has a back problem and Chris Lynn has departed. Ben Manenti may be asked to be the No 1 spinner.

Possible XI: Short, Carey, Head, Hose, de Grandhomme, Kelly, Nielsen, Manenti, W Agar, Thornton, Conway

Melbourne Renegades are possibly hardest hit by the rival SA and UAE leagues. Mujeeb Rahman and Akeal Hosein leave and take 20 wickets with them. Fawad Ahmed has a lot on his plate as a replacement.

Marcus Harris is available again but he might not make much of an impact for a batting line-up that has struggled. An injury (another one) to Shaun Marsh is a major blow.

Possible XI: Guptill, Harris, Harper, Finch, Wells, Sutherland, Harvey, Prestwidge, K Richardson, Rogers, Fawad.

Pitch report

This season there have been first-innings scores of 229, 186, 184 and 150. Strikers are more reliable with the bat so long as Head and Carey are available. You may be paying over 168.5 on the par line if they were to bat first. Around 4.003/1 may be available for 190 or more for Strikers.

How to play

Strikers are 1.814/5 with Renegades 2.206/5. Given the churn that these two sides have experienced both could be forgiven for needing time to find their feet.

However, man for man Strikers have the edge. They are also high on confidence following their extraordinary record-breaking win over Hobart Hurricanes. If they bat first they could be trading at 1.402/5 at the break.

Outright value

Squad churn is feature of this year's Bash. Few teams can argue they are unaffected. One of them is Sydney Sixers. They lose James Vince and Chris Jordan but gain Steve Smith and Nathan Lyon. It's therefore surprising you can still get 4.2016/5 about a title win. They are well on course for a top-two finish and may get revenge over Perth ina repeat of last year's final.