Trent Rockets vs Birmingham Phoenix Prediction: Time to bet on Benny at 7/2

The Rockets will want to win this one and gain some momentum ahead of the Playoffs, while the Phoenix will want to finish a mediocre season on a high. It starts at 18:30 on Wednesday, live on Sky Sports Cricket.  

Jamie Pacheco talks us through his analysis and his tips for the match as he has keyed in on one Trent Rockets vs Birmingham Phoenix Prediction...    

*You can check out all of our Cricket Odds over at betfred.com

Trent Rockets  

The Rockets will finish second or third and will play the Northern Superchargers in the Eliminator irrespective of what happens here.  

Crucially for them, Joe Root has finally come to the party, following up 76 against the Invincibles with a beautifully-timed 64 not out against the Welsh Fire.  

They need to re-think their batting order though. Marcus Stoinis at 7? David Willey at 8? They have to be careful about too many experiments and too much messing around with the order and make sure their best players face enough balls.    

Birmingham Phoenix  

The Phoenix are out and they can look at the fact they never won two in a row as a big contributing factor to that. We've said it before but picking Adam Milne, Tim Southee and Trent Boult as three of their overseas players was too much a case of putting all your eggs in one basket and it just didn't work. Southee was dropped last time out. It would be a big surprise if at least one of those three wasn't released, with an overseas spinner surely a priority for next season.  

Skipper Liam Livingstone was their stand-out player, leading the run charts with 231 runs and being their second highest wicket-taker with six. He won top bowler honours on Sunday at a big price the match after we backed him at 10/1. It happens.  

Joe Clarke has been very consistent too, while the evergreen Benny Howell just keeps on doing his thing, which has brought him eight wickets.  

Pitch and conditions

This hasn't been one of the better wickets to bat on with one first innings score below 100, two in the 120s, one in the 140s and a top first innings score of the season when the Fire posted 150 on Sunday. The Rockets chased in all five and won the lot, so it's pretty obvious what their preferred modus operandi is at home.  

Key Odds

The Rockets are 8/11, implied probability of 57.9%, with the Phoenix 11/10, or 47.6%.  

A slight word of caution before piling into the Rockets, who have been a better team than the Phoenix so far this season; the Phoenix are 5-3 up on the head-to-head, so have found ways to beat them in the past.  

As has been the case in the vast majority of matches I've previewed this season in The Hundred, I don't see an edge on the main market, so I'll look elsewhere. 

*You can check out all the latest and live Trent Rockets vs Birmingham Phoenix Odds over on betfred.com

Birmingham Phoenix Top Bowler  

This really isn't a game with many stand-out bets and the players we've backed at good value prices from these these two teams in the past month- whether they went on to win or not – are now pretty much the prices they should be. 

So, we'll have our first bet of the tournament on Benny Howell being his side's top wicket-taker here.  

His eight wickets are more than anyone else has managed at the Phoenix with Livingstone next best on six., so that's a good starting point. Speaking of Livingstone, he was 10/1 last time out so we can't be going anywhere near him at the 5/1 he is now.  

Howell has played every match and bowled more deliveries than anyone else in the side, which is also a good omen as the more balls you bowl, the greater your chances of wickets. The 7/2 means a two-way dead heat would still produce a healthy profit and even a three-way one returns over a point in profit, so that will do us.  

Jamie Pacheco Cricket Hundred P/L 2025: 

• Points Staked: 24.5
• Points Returned: 27.91  
• Current P/L: +3.41

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket and European Football for us at Betfred Insights. You can check out his Cricket Betting Tips, along with those from the rest of the team, at our Cricket hub page...