The T20 series between India and South Africa continues on Sunday when the two sides head to Guwahati for the second game of the three, one which presents the home team with the first of two chances to win the series.
While that is on the table the overriding aim for both of them will be to continue their preparation for the T20 World Cup which is now only two weeks away so chances to finalise combinations are beginning to run low.
India
I think if you had asked India what an ideal start to the series would have looked like then it would have been the performance they delivered in the opening game. They had the match won after three overs and while they might not have been as ruthless as they would have liked, when you consider the personnel they were using there certainly can’t have been any complaints. They will be looking for a repeat of that here.
The India bowlers were brilliant in the opening game and that bodes well because you would imagine the team whose seamers bowl the best in Australia over the next six weeks or so will be the one which comes away with the title. We can’t really build an opinion of their batters on that first game but we do know from the Australia series which preceded it that most of the top order are in great form and it is about them ticking over now.
South Africa
They won’t need me to tell them that the batting was horrendous for South Africa in the opening match. The new ball swung a little bit but nothing like as much as the score suggested it did and most of their players had just come from England where the ball moves around anyway so there really was no excuse for their batting to be as bad as it was. The only crumb of comfort you can give to them is that there wasn’t a warm up game but most of their players have played in the IPL so that is probably being overly kind.
To the credit of the South Africa bowlers, even though they must have known they didn’t have nearly enough runs to defend, they put up a fair showing and that was the positive to come from the match. You get the feeling that if South Africa can bat better, and it would be hard to bat any worse than they did in the opening game, then they have the attack which can make a difference even against a form unit.
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Team News
There are no signs that India will change their personnel for this second game of the series but with matches beginning to run out before the World Cup we might see those who haven’t had much batting recently go up the order so Rishabh Pant and Dinesh Karthik could be primed for moves.
There are three ODIs to follow this series so you would think they will rotate their bowlers to ensure they are fresh for the World Cup later in the month. Dwaine Pretorius would strengthen the batting while Lungi Ngidi is another option.
Betting
In the only other T20 international here the new ball did plenty and based on what we saw when the new ball moved in the opening game it might well be that this is a lower scoring game than we might expect between two decent sides. The one thing we do know about these two teams is that they are pretty strong with the ball and those bowlers keep on coming with no real weak link in either bowling attack, which suggests a low scoring game could be on the cards.
The run line for this match is 327.5 which when you consider there was only 240 runs in the first game on this ground looks a little high. The temperatures during the day are going to be pretty extreme so this pitch could be dry and the ball might stick into it so timing the ball might not be easy for the batters either. South Africa have failed to make 150 in their last four batting efforts in India which have all come in the last three months and if that trend continues the under should be safe.
Tips
Back Under 327.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betway
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