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The San Francisco Unicorns began their 2024 Major League Cricket season with an impressive six-wicket defeat of the Los Angeles Knight Riders in their opening match, whilst the Texas Super Kings suffered a defeat to LAKR before perhaps being saved by the rain for a no result against the Washington Freedom.
DATE & TIME: Wednesday 10th July, 2024 – USA ET – 3:00pm / USA PT – 12:00pm / West Indies – 2:00pm / UK – 8:00pm / South Africa – 9:00pm / Thursday 11th July, 2024 – Pakistan – 12:00am / India – 12:30am / Bangladesh – 1:00am / Australia – 5:00am
VENUE: Church Street Park, Morrisville, North Carolina, United States
WEATHER: 34c or 93.2 F with clear, sunny skies
HOW TO WATCH ON TV: USA – Willow TV / West Indies – TBA / UK – TNT Sports / South Africa – ESPN / Pakistan – A Sports / India – TBA / Bangladesh – TBA / Australia – N/A
HOW TO WATCH ONLINE: USA – Willow TV / West Indies – TBA / UK – TNT Sports app / South Africa – ESPN+ app / Pakistan – A Sports / India – TBA / Bangladesh – TBA / Australia – Amazon Prime Video
SAN FRANCISCO UNICORNS FORM: SPEEDY SAN FRANCISCO
In the inaugural season of Major League Cricket last year, the San Francisco Unicorns finished fifth with two victories and three defeats in their five matches. This time, though, the Unicorns demolished LAKR. They held them to just 165-6 in their 20 overs before chasing that down with six wickets to spare in just 15.2 overs with excellent innings’ from Finn Allen and Matt Short.
LAST THREE: WLLWL
TEXAS SUPER KINGS FORM: DAD’S ARMY
With the influence of the so-called ‘Dad’s Army’ of the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League, the Texas Super Kings were beaten by 12 runs by LAKR in their opening game with TSK making just 150-8 in their 20 overs before then scoring 203-5 against the Washington Freedom. The rain helped them out, though, with the Freedom already on 62-0 in just four overs.
LAST THREE: ALLLW
SAN FRANCISCO UNICORNS BETTING ANALYSIS
The San Francisco Unicorns were extremely impressive with both bat and ball in their defeat of LAKR. Their top four of Allen, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Short and Josh Inglis will likely outscore anyone and a bet on the Unicorns to post a total in advance of 200, if they bat first, would be good value as they can go hard until quite late in the order with Liam Plunkett in at nine.
Former England international Plunkett performed his excellent ‘middle overs’ role well again in their opener as he took the wicket of former teammate Jason Roy with just the third ball outside of the powerplay. With TSK’s lineup structured to take the game deep, Plunkett will be pivotal and it would therefore be worthwhile to back Plunkett to be the Unicorns’ top bowler.
TEXAS SUPER KINGS BETTING ANALYSIS
In their opening encounter, the Texas Super Kings took seven wickets against LAKR but their most threatening bowler, Marcus Stoinis, picked up two wickets but went for 37 runs in his three overs. The most control was shown by Pakistani seamer Zia-ul-Haq and him to be their best bowler, once again, in what is a fairly weak attack, would appear a good bet for this one.
With the bat, TSK will have to think about upping the run rate with Faf du Plessis’ impressive century the other day still looking like it wouldn’t have been enough to defeat Washington. Stoinis found some touch with 29 off 18 and the Aussie all-rounder to continue to grow into the tournament with a 30+ score here would be worth having a go on.
SAN FRANCISCO UNICORNS VS TEXAS SUPER KINGS EXPERT PREDICTION
The volatility in Twenty20 cricket means that tactical trends can be quite sweeping and come in quite quickly before fading just as fast. What is a point to mention here is that the top four of the San Francisco Unicorns features four of the modern-day white-ball players where they go hard from the off, whilst Devon Conway and Du Plessis open up for a TSK side looking to pragmatically get games won. There is perhaps no right or wrong way if you are eventually successful but it has to be said that the Unicorns, on a pitch now producing some very high scores, should simply be favoured to outscore their opposition.
SAN FRANCISCO UNICORNS VS TEXAS SUPER KINGS TOP TIP: SAN FRANCISCO UNICORNS TO WIN
