The tournament got off to a fast start this week at the ‘Home of Cricket’.
Heinrich Klaasen is a 22-1 shot to be the top-scoring batter in the tournament while David Miller is at 45-1. If those odds sound appealing, it’s time to apply one’s mind to The Hundred.
The 2025 tournament featuring cricket’s shortest form got underway at Lord’s in London this week.
WG Grace might be rolling in his grave, but the action is non-stop for the next three weeks – with men’s and women’s finals to be played on Sunday 31 August.
South Africa’s best all-rounder Marizanne Kapp starred in a losing cause in Tuesday’s opener as her Oval Invincibles Women side went down to London Spirit. She took two wickets off her quota of 20 balls and scored 33 off 21 with the bat in front of a crowd of more than 26,000 at the ‘Home of Cricket’.
Oval Invincibles Men avenged their womenfolk’s loss (men’s and women’s games are played back-to-back) and both teams remain overall tournament favourites at 4.30 and 4.80 respectively with Betway.
London Spirit are the rank outsiders in both categories – at 16.90 and 13.00.
South African interest
A handful of South Africans are scattered throughout the eight big-city teams, including Klaasen at Manchester Originals and Miller at Northern Superchargers.
SuperSport is providing saturation coverage of the daily games, so local interest should be high.
For the uninitiated, The Hundred rules are largely the same as those for T20 cricket – except that there are 100 balls per innings, with 10-ball overs from alternating ends. Bowlers deliver either five or 10 consecutive balls and each has a maximum of 20 balls per game.
Favourite to be the top male batter at The Hundred is England’s Jos Buttler at 9.00, with Will Jacks at 11.00 and James Vince at 13.00. The shortest-priced South African batter is Klaasen at 23.00, with Donovan Ferreira next at 34.00.
In the bowling market, Jofra Archer is a 12.00 chance to top the wickets-taken column, ahead of Noor Ahmad (13.00) and Rashid Khan (15.00).
All these players are familiar to South African cricket fans – and bettors – from the SA20.
