Comment below what you think the total aggregate score in this game will be for your chance to win the final author payout in SPORTS tokens from this post.

You can find the general rules and information on this competition here

Current burn and winnings stats as follows. While the cricket has been on pause as the teams prepare for the playoffs the burning has continued and we are edging ever closer to the 1million SPORTS mark

Form Guide

After a few days break the cricket action returns as the competition enters the playoff stage. This year's playoff structure is different from the straight forward semi-final to final route that previous competitions have used and is closer instead to the kind of format the IPL uses albeit that there is an extra team and therefore extra match thrown in for good measure / to confuse the shit out of everyone watching. It's probably easier to explain with the below diagram

For this match what it means is that the loser goes home while the winner would need to claim victory in 2 further games just to make it to the final. A tough route to be sure but then the Hobart Hurricanes have come this far so why not a little further? With 5 matches to go it looked like the team whose kit reminds me of Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate were dead and burried. They had 3 or 4 major players missing from their side for various reasons and the guys that were left were all struggling for form. However, they pulled it around, winning their last 3 matches off the back of some tremendous batting performances.

Wade and Short were a force to be reckoned with in last year's Bash leading the Hurricanes to the top of the league but their supporters had to wait until the very last part of the season to see the 2 reunited again. Beyond the run-scoring form that Wade, in particular, has exhibited that partnership seems to have given the entire team a lift and you can see from the form guide above that they are scoring runs for fun at the moment.

Similarly, The Thunder are very dependent upon their top order with Hales, Khawaja and Ferguson all having good years. Where they have struggled is in the middle order with runs and the general tempo of the innings faltering once those 3 big names are out. The Hurricanes, by contrast, are beginning to show a little more form in that area with the likes of David Miller, George Bailey and even Clive Rose playing at least useful cameos to push the side up to and above average scores.

Hobart usually provides a good wicket with at least one short boundary meaning that we should see some decent run-scoring. Given their traditional form at home though, it is perhaps unusual to see that the Hurricanes have only won one game in Hobart all season albeit that that was the game against their visitors today who they beat comfortably just a couple of weeks ago. Another factor to consider could be how these players deal with the pressure of a knockout tie. The Hurricanes have made the playoffs 3 years in a row while the Thunder have only been in this situation once in their history all the way back in 2016. I fancy that if the Hurricanes bat first they will go big again while for the Thunder everything rests on at least one of their top 3 batting most of the overs.

Entries for this competition close at 8:30am GMT on Thursday, 30th January

Just add what you think the total number of runs in this match will be in the comments section below