After two comprehensive drubbings of India in the opening two ODIs, Australia head to Melbourne on Sunday knowing they can win the series less than a week after it began. India make the trip knowing if they are to keep the series alive they have to win.
Australia have chased with ease in the opening two matches even though their bowling attack hasn’t kept India to what you could class as low or below par totals. I’m sure once this series is in the bag Darren Lehmann will be looking at bowling combinations going forward.
They might well make a change to the side here with Mitchell Marsh coming back in after sitting out the last match. John Hastings has been retained in the squad and should feature on his home ground so it could be that Marsh comes back in place of Kane Richardson who was a little expensive in the previous game.
There have been some weird noises coming out of the Indian camp on this tour and MS Dhoni’s quote about not expecting his bowlers to defend 300 in these conditions has to be one of the more bizarre. I’m assuming it was to take the pressure off them but it could be that all he’s done is heighten the focus on them. Either way they need to improve.
The problem for Dhoni having made the claim that he wants his batsmen to improve is that he doesn’t appear to have too many options for change so unless they tinker with their bowling attack and bring in Bhuvneshwar Kumar then I would imagine India will be unchanged from the Brisbane defeat.
The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the venue for this third game of the series. ODIs have been being staged here forever and a day and last year it held the World Cup final. Australia have a 72-43 winning record here while India are 10-10 on this ground.
I thought the series would be a high scoring one before it began and that is how it has played out so far. There is nothing to suggest that on a ground which we’ve seen regular 300+ scores made on that this match will be any different.
The toss will be big in this match. I don’t see a way India can win unless they bat second and even then they would be chasing to keep the series alive so they wouldn’t be guaranteed to win. Despite that I can’t really get too involved in a handicap because wickets do tend to fall here with chases being large.
With that in mind I’ll go to the player performances for a bet and I’ll take someone who plays here for the Melbourne Stars and that is James Faulkner.
Faulkner has bagged a couple of wickets in both matches so far and so a repeat of that doesn’t leave much for him to do to cover a line of 42. I would imagine he’ll get a bat here even if it is only a few overs to finish the innings so two wickets should be enough. If he bats for longer we might not even need a wicket so there’s enough potential in him to have that covered comfortably enough.
Back J.Faulkner’s Performance Pts – 42&Over for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
