The Australian home international summer concludes this week with three T20 matches against India with the first of those being the traditional Australia Day match in Adelaide on Tuesday.
This is a day where Australia usually play limited overs cricket although often of the ODI variety but with the ICC World T20 fast approaching the attention is on the shortest format of the game here.
Australia have these three matches and then three more against South Africa in March to get their T20 side up to shape ahead of the tournament in India. Off the back of the success of the Big Bash the nation has a bit of T20 fever so this is an important series as a standalone nature for the hosts.
It is a pretty important series for India too. This is the first time they will have played a T20 international since 5th October last year, a match they lost comprehensively and were bowled out for just 92 in the process. They will be eager to improve on that! This isn’t the end of the preparation for India though. They have the upcoming Asia Cup to come too.
T20 was meant to be a young person’s game but nobody seems to have told these two nations. After a while in the wilderness Australia have recalled Shaun Tait to their squad for this series and the expectation is that he will start on his former Big Bash home ground. Glenn Maxwell misses out so either Chris Lynn or Travis Head will start. Both could start if Australia play only one spinner and rely on Head’s part timers on his home ground.
India haven’t ignored the veterans either as there is an international return for both Yuvraj Singh and Ashish Nehra for this series. Like Tait, both are expected to start for India while there is also a place for Suresh Raina after he was dropped for the one day series. India are expected to go in with two spinners and Yuvraj but it hasn’t been confirmed which two.
The wonderful Adelaide Oval stages this first match of the series. There have been two previous T20 internationals here which Australia have lost to England in 2011 and to South Africa two years ago.
We know from seeing how well the Strikers went in the Big Bash that the wicket here is good for batting and the square boundaries ensure big scores can be made. On a national holiday I’m expecting there to be a wish for extreme entertainment so I expect an ideal batting track to be offered up here.
We also saw in the Big Bash that defending this ground isn’t easy so I don’t really want to get involved in the match betting in advance although if India end up chasing I could easily see myself taking them once the toss has taken place.
There is one bet I like in this match and that is on Australia to score more than seven sixes. There is a slight risk to it and that is that India bat first and get skittled but on what we saw in the ODIs that is unlikely especially given how good I expect the wicket to be.
With that in mind I would be extremely surprised if this powerful Australian batting line up can’t cart this Indian ‘attack’ over the ropes more than half a dozen times. Finch, Warner, Lynn, Watson, Faulkner and Wade can all belt a long ball and there isn’t anything of danger in this Indian attack.
I’m expecting Australia to go out with an all out attack approach to lay a marker down for the series and what is to come over the next 2-3 months and if they do that they should hit at least seven sixes here.
Back Australia Over 6.5 sixes for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Paddy Power
