The Ground: The straight boundaries here are above medium at around 75m and square boundaries are smallish at 65m. The large boundaries mean that 65% of all dismissals are caught. Also, the spin friendly conditions generate false shots from batsmen. Boundary percentage here is 52% of total runs, most of which come square of the wicket.

The Pitch: Manuka Oval uses modern drop-in pitch technology. The pitch has historically favored slow bowlers in the middle overs and offer some pace and bounce in the early overs.

Bowling: Thunder have a much more bowling attack with 3 high quality spinners, suiting the conditions. Brisbane bowling has been patchy and wayward and they lack a quality spinner apart from Kuhnemann.

Batting: Both teams have good batting depth and the Heat batting is in red hot form. Thunder are struggling with their middle order batting and would once again look to Billings and Bancroft to support thier batting.

Teams: Its a must win game for the Thunder. No team in the history of BBL have ever come back from 0-3 down to make it to the top 4. Heat are confident after their record chase against Perth. But those runs came in much better batting conditions. This venue will test how they play spin. Thunder know this ground better, so should be able to better adapt to the conditions.

Toss Advantage: As per the ground stats, toss is very important at this venue. Teams batting 2nd have advantage. In the last 10 matches, 7 have been won by the chasing team.

Match Prediction: Considering all factors, Sydney Thunder are favorites to win the match with a 57% win chance in a very close match due to their all round depth. Anything over 175 should be defended and scores below 145 should be chased. If Heat or Thunder bat first, score of 160-170 is expected. Overall, a medium scoring match is expected in the range of 165-185.