Melbourne Stars vs Brisbane Heat Betting Tips 16/01/2022

January 16, 2022 3:37 am

Zohaib Ahmed, Senior Author

The 50^th match of the Big Bash League 2021-22 sees Melbourne Stars take on Brisbane Heat on Jan 16 (Sunday) at Melbourne Cricket Ground. The match is to begin at pm 1:45 pm IST.

Teams Status

Melbourne Stars

Melbourne Stars’ playoffs hopes suffered a setback on Saturday as they were beaten by the resurgent Adelaide Strikers.

With just two more matches the go, the 23-run defeat stung the Stars hard as they sit just outside the playoff spots, with a six-point gap between themselves and the fifth-placed Hobart Hurricanes.

Set a 156-run target, the Stars, who seemed strong on paper, couldn’t handle the raw pace of Adelaide pacer Henry Thornton, losing early wickets and reeling at 37 for 4. Hilton Cartwright showed resistance with a decent 49 and so did Joe Burns (25) but the tumbling of wickets resumed after an interval and in the end the defeat was theirs.

The defeat dented their hopes but did not end it. However, losing to Brisbane in this one will be curtains.

Brisbane Heat

The equation for Brisbane Heat will be no different in this game. Win and stay in the hunt for the fifth spot. Lose and see your slim playoff hopes vanish.

Fortunately for the Heat, they’ve received a timely boost as Mitchell Swepson and Michael Neser have been released from Australia’s Ashes squad and are in contention to play this fixture.

Further good news is that all the dozen players that were hit by Covid earlier this month have now recovered and are available for selection.

Coincidentally, the Heat’s last game was also against the Strikers and was also a defeat in an unsuccessful chase.

What Do the Sportsbooks Say?

Brand	Melbourne Stars	Brisbane Heat
	1.69	2.17
	1.72	2.204
	1.70	2.18

Melbourne are the favourites for this Big Bash League fixture. Parimatch has Melbourne priced at 1.69 and Brisbane at 2.17. Paripesa has Melbourne available for 1.72 and Brisbane for 2.204. Lastly, Sportsbet has Melbourne priced at 1.70 and Brisbane at 2.18.

Tipster’s Angle

Tip: Brisbane to win @ 2.18

Brisbane are welcoming back several important players who had been missing in action for a while and their absence was felt immensely. Neither of these sides are in form or have too many positives to look at but the Heat have a slim advantage of finally getting back to their full strength and can also be gotten at underdog odds. Thus, they are our pick here. The odds have been sourced from Sportsbet.

Tip: Ben Duckett total runs over 21.5 @ 1.87

It may have been a horrible campaign so far for Brisbane but it hasn’t been so due to anything Ben Duckett has done. The England wicketkeeper-batter has played several decent knocks and is a fairly useful player. Here, we need to score over 21.5 runs @ 1.87. Mind you, he contributed 24 in the last game so it’s very much within his powers. The odds have been sourced from Parimatch.

Conclusion

One of these two sides’ campaigns will end after this game. We think it will be the Stars.

Zohaib Ahmed

03:37, 16 Jan 2022

Senior Author

Zohaib Ahmed

Senior Author

03:37, 16 Jan 2022

Zohaib Ahmed is a sports journalist whose profession is to report and edit but whose passion is to predict and bet. He’s been in the industry for more than a decade and has worked/written for various bookmakers/tipsters. His expertise is in cricket, football, MMA, boxing and basketball.