Final Word: Round 5 skippers, tactics, weather

• EPISODE 85: SC Playbook podcast, Round 5/6

We’ve arrived at Round 5 of the SuperCoach Big Bash season, running across the busy Christmas period.

Fortunately it’s also the first round of the season where there are no teams on the double game week or on the bye.

Hopefully this means we should have fairly close to full squads to choose from.

It’s also imperative that we take the opportunity to initiate the vice-captain and auto-emergency loopholes.

This means picking a VC in an early game in the round, and if that player goes large, e.g. Rashid Khan, you can put your captaincy on a non-active player in Round 5, therefore getting double for Khan’s score.

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Ditto for the auto-emergency, place it on a player who plays early in the round, e.g. Matt Short, and if he scores well you can put a non-active player into your starting team in the same position.

If Short scores poorly, you simply put an active player into your squad and take their score.

There’s rain around Sydney for the Thunder v Sixers clash on Sunday, so if you intend on bringing in players from those sides, try to do so as late as possible and monitor the forecast over the weekend.

After a poor decision to skipper Tymal Mills over Mitch Marsh, The Cooma Stallions dropped to 610th place overall.

Let’s take a look at Round 5.

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WEATHER WATCH

All weather is courtesy of the Bureau of Meteorology as of Wednesday, 12.15PM. All times are in AEDT. Forecasts are subject to change.

THURSDAY

7:15PM: Strikers v Heat, Adelaide Oval

Forecast: Sunny, 29 degrees, 0% chance of rain.

Verdict: All clear

FRIDAY

3.30PM: Hurricanes v Stars, Blundstone Arena, Hobart

Forecast: Partly cloudy, 24 degrees, 10% chance of any rain.

Verdict: Looking clear.

SUNDAY

6:05PM: Thunder v Sixers, Sydney Showground

Forecast: Showers increasing, 27 degrees, 80% chance of 3-10mm of rain, possible thunderstorm in the morning.

Verdict: Big watch on the updating forecast over the weekend. Proceed with caution in recruiting Thunder and Sixers players, make trades as late as possible. Assess back up plans if you need to bench any players, although it may be difficult late in the round.

9:15PM: Scorchers v Renegades, Marvel Stadium, Melbourne

Forecast: Partly cloudy, 20 degrees, 5% chance of any rain.

Verdict: Looking clear.

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LOOKING AHEAD

There’s no teams on the double or the bye this week, what a nice change!

Round 6 though will see the Hurricanes and Heat on the double, so factor these players into your trades.

I’ll likely use at least two of my three trades on their players, however popular options such as D’Arcy Short and Matty Wade have high breakevens which isn’t ideal, so it may be worth waiting on those guys.

The Heat’s line-up is also fairly unpredictable, so I’d be waiting on most of their contingent too.

Round 7 will see another week with no sides on the bye or double game week, so we have a pretty clear run upcoming.

The Stars then have the Round 8 double, so if you can hold their players it’s advised.

SUPER PODS

Each week one of our contributors will provide a full analysis on the point of difference (POD) players to consider.

In the Final Word, we’ll look at the super POD options, the players at under 5% ownership (or around about) that could send you soaring (or falling) up the overall ranks.

They come with big risk, but the reward is immense if it comes off.

Last week, Liam Guthrie was a late scratching from the Heat game (updated pre-game and noted in article), while Ben McDermott flopped with 8 points.

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Nathan Ellis – 5.9% ownership

I like the idea of recruiting players who will be popular in upcoming weeks, namely those who have a double in a round or two.

Ellis fits this category and should come into plenty of sides for the Hurricanes Round 6 double.

While he certainly won’t be mass purchased, he’ll have admirers.

He’s locked into a death bowling role which he’s very good at, and the Hurricanes have a dream upcoming draw against the Stars (tough), Strikers, Renegades, Heat, Strikers and Heat.

He has a low score of just 33 this season which is encouraging and with four scores of 88+ last season he has a decent sized ceiling.

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BREAKEVENS

Each week we’ll list the top 10 players with both the highest and lowest breakevens, plus a few additional players worth noting, to help track your cash movement.

LOWEST BREAKEVEN (Money-makers)

Glenn Maxwell (-49)

Aaron Finch (-43)

Liam Guthrie (-37)

Thomas Kelly (-31)

Dan Christian (-19)

Brody Couch (-19)

Nic Maddinson (-18)

Ashton Agar (-16)

Kurtis Patterson (-16)

Tom Cooper (-16)

Tanveer Sangha (-12)

Saqib Mahmood (-10)

James Bazley (-5)

Mark Steketee (3)

Mitch Marsh (11)

HIGHEST BREAKEVEN (Likely money fallers)

Matthew Wade (142)

Tom Curran (138)

Nathan Coulter-Nile (125)

Ben Dwarshuis (120)

Reece Topley (113)

D’Arcy Short (112)

Peter Siddle (105)

Moises Henriques (98)

Dan Worrall (95)

Mujeeb Ur Rahman (91)

Jack Wildermuth (90)

Jason Behrendorff (90)

Tymal Mills (88)

Marcus Stoinis (88)

Josh Inglis (88)

Colin Munro (82)

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SKIPPERS

We get two genuine cracks at nailing a skipper as noted above in the intro.

This will likely mean your vice-captain will have to come from the first two games, being the Strikers v Heat and Hurricanes v Stars.

The question then begs, what score does it take to loop your vice-captain?

It’ll be fairly circumstantial and everyone has a different opinion, but provided there’s no concerns around weather (which there is in the Sydney clash) or other issues, I’m happy to take anything around 65-70.

In prior years this would have been higher, but we’ve seen plenty of big name SuperCoach players struggle this season, alongside varying roles.

Popular options have question marks around them.

Will D’Arcy Short and Glenn Maxwell bowl? Can Dan Sams rediscover his groove? Is Josh Philippe due for a failure? Etc…

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As a result I’ve limited my loop score a little more than past years, but I think we can work off a ballpark figure of 60-80.

Overall players need to chase the higher score, whereas head-to-head players who favour themselves in their match-up may be willing to take the lower end.

This week I like Glenn Maxwell as VC who will be a very popular option coming off his monster double game week.

He takes on the Heat who have struggled this season, do note though that the returns of Mitchell Swepson and Mark Steketee add plenty of class to the bowling attack.

With the form he’s in I’m happy to give him the armband.

I won’t bank on him bowling often, however he has rolled the arm over every game this season, ranging from one to two overs, taking two wickets thus far, so it all helps.

Initially I was eyeing Sams as skipper despite his below par form, but the rain forecast for Sydney is concerning.

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With Mitch Marsh bowling two economical overs against the Hurricanes alongside the ridiculous vein of form he’s in I think you’d be brave to go against him.

His recent scores across the Big Bash and T20 World Cup are: 21, 100*, 77* and 28. Add to the mix scores of 33 and 60* in the Australia A match against the England Lions.

Fair to say the big fella is seeing them okay at the moment…

He also takes on the Renegades which is exciting.

Other options include Rashid Khan (aided by ample batting opportunities of late) and Josh Philippe (forecast pending).