It is crunch time for England in their ODI series with Australia as the two sides head up to the Riverside in Durham for the third match of the five and one that they home team have to win if they want to stay alive in it.
Australia have dominated the series so far and a win here will secure the spoils for them with a couple of matches left. England haven’t been at the races at all so far and need a massive improvement if they are to take it to game four.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Cricket channels with the build-up to the game beginning at 12pm ahead of the 12.30pm start time.
England
If England thought they were going to start a new era in a positive fashion they have quickly been made to think again and if they don’t win this match then this will be one of the tamer series losses they have had in recent times. This could all have been so much different had they maximised the position they were in 30 overs or so into the opening game of the series. Since that point they have played some pretty ordinary cricket and have seemingly forgotten how to play 50 over cricket.
I don’t think anyone minds England having an aggressive mindset going into an innings but there has to be an appreciation of the game situation and rein it in when they are in a spot of trouble and manage their way out of that period rather than continue to throw caution to the wind and get themselves deeper into a hole. It might be that the batting just doesn’t trust the bowling and that would be a fair assessment but there still needs to be a lot more braincells applied when they are batting.
Australia
I would imagine that Australia could scarcely believe how easily they have had it in this series so far. It should be remembered that they are the world champions in this format and very much the team to beat in it but they have kept England uncompetitive save for maybe 30 overs in the opening game. Even when England had Australia in a bit of bother in the second match the tourists were able to get themselves out of trouble without too much fuss.
The batting is the reason why Australia are 2-0 up but you only have to look at the quality of the bowling unit that they had out to know that they are going to be hard to beat. That wasn’t the case in the first game and they were still able to get themselves back into that to win easily. Given that three key players will have natural improvement in them in this third game of the series the world champions are entitled to think they have every chance of winning the series here and now.
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Team News
England will surely bring Jofra Archer back into the side for this match and you wonder if he comes back for Olly Stone even though Stone bowled well last time out. The other two seamers are from Durham and would be bowling on their home ground.
Australia have no reason to change a winning side from the last game. The only reason to change would be to rest players and Aaron Hardie has played plenty of cricket on this tour so far so Cameron Green could come in for him.
Betting
The opening match of this series was high scoring but I’m not convinced that this one will be, and certainly not as high scoring as the run line for it expects it to be. There is a case for the white ball wickets in Durham having played well over the last couple of seasons but they don’t normally have this quality of Australia bowling unit on it and that makes me think the 587.5 run line is too high. I think that for a number of reasons really.
A small Headingley ground didn’t cover this total and since Trent Bridge two major things have happened. Australia have got their key bowlers back and there has been a lot of rain around the UK and the air is much heavier at the minute. When you throw in this is a bigger ground than Trent Bridge too, I just think at this time of year whether you like it or not there is going to be some moisture in the pitch and the square is going to be used. Throw in a potentially damp outfield and I don’t like this line to cover.
Tips
Back Under 587.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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