West Indies conclude their tour of Australia on Tuesday when the two teams play the third and final T20 match with this last game of the series coming from Perth in what should be another exciting game of cricket.
Australia have already won the series after winning the opening two matches but these games have always been about preparing for the World Cup which is only four months away as much as the results of them.
Australia
Australia have won both of the matches so far in the series in pretty brutal fashion. They have batted first on both occasions and posted in excess of 200 each time. While they have conceded 200 in both matches as well, they have had enough runs on the board to get the job done. You would imagine that they will only get better with the bat the longer they get some rhythm in this format of the game and it will be interesting to see if that trend continues here.
Australia will like to improve with the ball ahead of the World Cup but you would imagine that will come naturally come the tournament when they have the likes of Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc in place. The one thing which would do no harm is a couple of seamers standout between now and then to force their way into the squad, if not the starting XI. The supposed second string get another chance to impress here.
West Indies
West Indies haven’t been a million miles away in this series. They could probably have been expected to be found wanting a touch at the beginning of the three games given that their players had largely jetted in from different conditions to the ones which they were playing on here. They would have been expected to compete better in the second game and while they lost it, they have just run into one of the best T20 innings you’ll see.
Sometimes you just have to hold your hands up in this format and accept when a player has gone great guns and taken a game away from you. To be fair to West Indies, they could have surrendered in a heap but they got over 200 in the second run chase and got within 34, which had the Maxwell innings not been as brutal as it was probably would have been a winning score for the tourists. Their bowlers have one last chance to deliver the goods here.
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Team News
We still haven’t seen Travis Head or Aaron Hardie in this series for Australia. Hardie could come in for Marcus Stoinis who is beginning to chew up too many balls with the bat without the required reward for the position that he bats in.
West Indies still haven’t used the likes of Kyle Mayers, Oshane Thomas, Gudakesh Motie or Roston Chase and now is the last chance that they will get to use them. Of the quartet you would imagine Mayers is the most likely to come in.
Betting
This has been a high scoring series so far and I don’t see any reason why this final game is going to be any different. If we go back to the Big Bash League here then the scores were on the decent side and the wickets were flat for batting. We all know that there is pace and bounce in the pitch so the batters can get under the ball and give it a good crack. We also know that straight down the ground mishits can fly for sixes and these two sides are not short of power.
We’ve seen that throughout the series. There were 27 sixes when these two sides met in Adelaide in the second game and I’ve got to think that with the straight hits here so short we are going to get another barrel load of sixes. Even the square boundaries, while they are long, they probably aren’t long enough for some of the players on show here. There is no competitive edge on this game so the batters can crack on and let the big shots flow. I like over 16.5 sixes here.
Tips
Back Over 16.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with William Hill
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