The Men's Hundred in focus: Halfway reports - Part II

KIERAN PARMLEY - ANALYSIS: At the midpoint of The Hundred's group stage, The Cricketer's analyst takes a look at how the eight teams are shaping up, what has gone right, what has gone wrong and what might come next

Oval Invincibles: Playing the Moody way

Oval Invincibles have quietly sneaked into the top three at the halfway point, playing a bowling heavy brand of cricket no doubt moulded by head coach Tom Moody.

With an attack consisting of two quality overseas spinners in Tabraiz Shamsi and Sunil Narine alongside the England pace trio of Reece Topley, Saqib Mahmood and Tom Curran, the Invincibles have arguably the best set of bowlers in the competition.

This allows Moody sides to do what they do best: set or defend average targets, as shown by their win against Welsh Fire, who could only muster a below-par 121 and a close defeat to Northern Superchargers despite chasing just 127.

Bar some average fielding at times, the batting department has been where the Invincibles have maybe disappointed, although there is a noticeable change in approach to what you’d expect from an orthodox limited overs side. 

With the Surrey duo of Jason Roy and Will Jacks opening the batting and Narine coming in at No.3, the Invincibles have decided that attacking the powerplay is the best route of success for them: a powerplay score of 47 for 2 in their recent win over Welsh Fire put a significant dent in the required run rate.

As a result, the rest of the batting unit is slightly anchor heavy, with Laurie Evans - an orthodox No. 3 - batting down at No.6 and Sam Billings being left to do a bulk of the work after the powerplay.

Whether this is sustainable is yet to be seen but with Jordan Clark and Tom Curran somewhat capable of providing returns at the backend of the innings and a bowling unit capable of defending average scores, there’s little need for concern just yet.

Southern Brave: Individual quality shines through

Brave have been the talk of t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶w̶n̶  Twitter throughout the first half of the tournament...and rightly so.

Mahela Jayawardene’s side have arguably the most talented squad in the tournament but there was plenty of worry for them after two losses at the start the campaign. However, things have picked up since then, largely thanks to the individuals in the side as opposed to their collective abilities. 

Question marks still remain when it comes to how the batting order is pieced together. James Vince, the scorer of a magnificent 60 off 38 in one of Brave's victories, opening up alongside Quinton de Kock leaves the team looking a little top heavy.

Powerplay specialist Alex Davies being deployed down the order isn’t helping him, and the same applies to Colin de Grandhomme, who hasn’t had the time at the crease he generally requires to get set.

Devon Conway hasn’t shown any signs of being much more than an anchor, striking at 112 so far.

A readjustment could find a happy medium between frontloading batting quality and playing batters in suitable roles, pushing Davies to open alongside De Kock and moving Vince down to No.3 or even No.4, a role he has had success in before. Delray Rawlins is another option should they want to mix it up even further. 

With the ball the main area of concern has to be the use of De Grandhomme, in general. A side with a pace unit of George Garton, Tymal Mills and Chris Jordan shouldn’t need to be supplemented by De Grandhomme, particularly in the powerplay as was the case on Sunday where the Kiwi conceded 24 runs from the five balls he bowled opening from one end.

Once again the individual quality in the Brave bowling unit managed to shine through in their victory against London Spirit, Garton’s wicket-taking ability and the death skills of Mills and Jordan rescuing the game, something that may not be possible in the future against better opposition than the London Spirit.

Trent Rockets: On a roll

Trent Rockets, led by Andy Flower, top the table through four matches with a three-and-one record and have largely been good value for that record too, with their bowling unit on top in all three victories. 

Rockets have gone spin heavy with the ball, in some games operating with all four spin disciplines with D'Arcy Short (left-arm wrist spin), Rashid Khan (right-arm wrist spin), Matt Carter (right-arm finger spin) and Samit Patel (left-arm finger spin). Such a variety in the attack has left Rockets captain Lewis Gregory capable of dictating match-ups well, particularly with left-arm pacer Luke Wood and right-arm quick Marchant de Lange, pushing 90mph, capable of rushing good players of spin, offering even more in terms of variety. 

What should be a slight worry for Rockets however is the mundane nature of their batting at times.

Both Short and Dawid Malan have been known to play slow-ish knocks and take up a large parts of the innings, in doing so leaving the likes of Patel, Gregory and Khan little time to show their explosive batting and take Rockets to above average scores when batting first. 

Welsh Fire: No Bairstow, no party

After devastating victories with the bat in their opening two games - setting scores of 173 and 165 - Welsh Fire have crashed back down to earth in the following two encounters, coinciding with the loss of Jonny Bairstow to the England Test squad. 

Bairstow’s scores of 56 (36) and 72 (39) helped boost Fire to above-average targets, something they’ve been unable to replicate without him in the side. He is arguably England’s best white-ball player and replacing his quality is almost impossible.

Since Bairstow’s departure Ben Duckett has done most of the heavy lifting in the batting unit but that simply hasn’t been enough, he needs help from key roleplayers Tom Banton, Glenn Phillips and Jimmy Neesham. Phillips and his poor returns should be the main concern for Gary Kirsten’s side and perhaps a move up the order for him could give him more freedom. Bar Ian Cockbain there is little in terms of quality to bring into the batting unit from the bench. 

As bad as things are with the bat, Fire are arguably worse with the ball. Losing both Liam Plunkett and key pacer Jake Ball to injuries has no doubt had an impact, leaving overseas spinner Qais Ahmad as the only real threat in this bowling attack. Despite Ahmad’s threat, the lack of large scores to defend or another threat in the bowling unit is likely to lead to sides simply playing him out, as Oval Invincibles did in their encounter on Monday evening.

As with the batting unit there is little quality to bring into the side to solve these problems, although Kent pacer Matt Milnes was impressive on debut.