A matter of days after the T20 World Cup ended, Australia and England begin their preparations for the next 50 over World Cup when the two sides begin a three-match ODI series in Adelaide on Thursday.
It is open to debate just how much England want this series four days after the highs of winning the T20 World Cup, while Australia could probably do without it too with the injuries they are beginning to carry but a series we will have.
Australia
Given that we have just had a T20 World Cup, you could be forgiven for thinking that it will have been a while since Australia played ODI cricket but that isn’t actually the case as it was only seven weeks or so ago that they played host to Zimbabwe and New Zealand in the 50 over format. You wouldn’t say they were overly convincing in either series but they won them and should be more in tune now we are deeper into the Australian summer.
Australia will begin a new era in this match as Aaron Finch retired from ODI cricket after the series against New Zealand. It means that Pat Cummins will lead the 50 over team for the first time. Although they might not want or need this series, they have named their strongest available squad for it so you would imagine they are looking to lay something of a marker down with less than a year to go until the 50 over World Cup in India.
England
England will have known this series was scheduled for here but they wouldn’t have known that four days previous they would be competing in an intense and emotional World Cup final which would quite rightly have been followed by some exuberant celebrations. They now have to go from the highs of that win to the relative comedown to a mundane ODI, if a match between these two sides can ever be described in that fashion.
Unlike Australia, England have chosen to give some of their second string players a go in this series, with managing workloads in mind as well as a big Test series in Pakistan in a couple of weeks. We’ve seen in the past that the England depth is strong enough that even without some of their star players they can still be competitive but there are one or two questions over how good they will be with the ball in this series. If they are good with the ball there is no reason they can’t give Australia a good run.
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Team News
It looks like Travis Head will get the opener berth vacated by Aaron Finch with Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne in at three and four. Alex Carey comes back in having sat out the T20 World Cup with Matthew Wade the 20 over keeper.
England will be without the likes of Alex Hales, Ben Stokes, Liam Livingstone, Chris Jordan and Harry Brook from the T20 World Cup final. Jason Roy returns to the side with James Vince, Sam Billings, David Willey and Olly Stone getting their chances to shine.
Betting
I’ll tread a little carefully on this season opener because I sense England could be a little on the flat side. That is understandable given the pressure matches they have been playing recently. I expect Australia to win the match but they themselves are in a new era and they did nothing that impressed me in the two series against Zimbabwe and New Zealand prior to the T20 World Cup so I’ll head to the side markets for a bet here with the one in focus being the total runs one.
The line for this match is at 546.5 which looks a little on the high side to me even allowing for the increased scoring rates in ODI cricket these days. I’ve already mentioned how there is the potential for England to be a little flat in this match and even if they are not this Australia bowling attack is legitimately very good. Australian teams haven’t batted well for a while so there is no guarantee that they are going to get away from England and there is every chance there will be some sort of used pitch in play here given that this was one of the later grounds used in the T20 World Cup. It all points to a lower scoring opening game than might otherwise have been expected.
Tips
Back Under 546.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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