David Warner, Steve Smith, Matt Short and Glenn Maxwell. These blokes either made or broke your round, as well some injury news to guys like Ben McDermott and Jhye Richardson.
Knowing what we know about how double game rounds can go when only one team plays twice, how do we approach the Hurricanes round 8 double? Do we get 4-5 Hurricanes or do we dare try and get Steve Smith and Matt Short?
How to Get Smith and Short
Just $500k. That’s how much it’ll take to get both Matt Short and Steve Smith, but is it worth it? In a somewhat ironic situation, they play each other in Round 8 at Adelaide Oval, a site which had 450 runs scored on it on Saturday night.
We know Adelaide is a great batting deck and we know that Smith and Short are 2 of the best players in the BBL. So what are their records like against the Strikers and the Sixers respectively?
Steve Smith has only faced the strikers once in recent times, for a score of 176 back in BBL12. Matt Short has a career average of 45.3 against the Sixers, but his last 3 games he has averaged 118.3ppg against them. So they both have scintillating records, and are fresh off the back of tons, which really does suggest that these guys need to be traded in.
The next dilemma is, how do you get the funds? Well, at the very least, you’ll need a budget of $550k to get those 2 and a nuff, making your average player worth 183k. Essentially, if you have Jason Behrendorff, Tom Rogers and Glenn Maxwell, then you can get Smith, Short and a nuff.
Probably worthwhile considering Maxi doesn’t play next round, so you’re essentially just upgrading Behrendorff and Rogers. It’s not a simple manoeuvre to pull off, is it? So should we then look at targeting some Hurricanes guys and building a nice bank of double game players?
Hurricanes Targets
The short answer is no. There’s maybe 4 reliable Hurricanes options and 2 genuinely good ones. Mitch Owen is the Hurricane that should be owned by everyone. He’s been in great form with the bat, has a very high strike rate and is regularly getting past 20 runs.
Then there’s Chris Jordan who bats at 7, bowls a surge over and bowls a death over or 2, making him an excellent option.
For some high ceiling guys, there’s Nikhil Chaudhary with his role in this Hurricanes team as a middle-order batter who bowls more than handy leg-spin.
It would be remiss of me not to mention Tim David, who has had back-to-back monster scores, making him the most in-form Hurricane heading into the double. The only problem is that he bats at 6 and doesn’t bowl, meaning his role can close him off at times. He’s in form though, and that might be reason enough to pick him at around $120k.
In reality, the answer is to bring in one of Smith or Short, but who? Well Smith is $20k cheaper and a better player, and Matt Short probably won’t be bowling considering how well D’Arcy Short just went as the 6th bowler.
I’ll be picking Smith, and bringing in Jordan and a keeper of some description to replace the injured Ben McDermott.
Thank you for reading another Devil’s Advocate, all the best for another round of SuperCoach, where things will inevitably go wrong, and the player you trade out will inevitably do well.
Cheers, Nathan (SuperCoach Guns)
