India continued their resurgence on their tour of Australia on Friday when they eased to a second T20 win in the series to take the series in the process but despite the series being over the two nations meet for the final time on Sunday in the third and last T20 match.
So far in the series by their own admission Australia have been outplayed with the bat, the ball and in the field and that is never a good combination but we shouldn’t be too surprised at that as the fact half of their side from the first match are now in New Zealand pretty much shows where their priorities lie.
Steve Smith and Dave Warner had already gone to New Zealand and they’ve been joined by Matthew Wade, John Hastings and Kane Richardson so none of those five will be available. Aaron Finch won’t be available either after he suffered a hamstring injury in the previous match. Shane Watson will take over the captaincy for this game.
India have come alive since the 20 over matches have started. Whether that is in anticipation of hosting the World T20 in March I’m not sure but their improvement has been clear for all to see.
MS Dhoni seemed to play down the idea of India making wholesale changes now that the series has been won although on a Sydney wicket which usually turns it might make sense to give Harbhajan Singh a game although there is still the Asia Cup to do things like that.
The Sydney Cricket Ground is the venue for this match and we’ve seen all summer how the wicket here often turns so that will keep India interested I’m sure.
In all there have been three T20 internationals on this ground and Australia have won all three of them. Those wins came against England, West Indies and New Zealand respectively. India will be looking for a winning debut here.
I’m not usually one for betting on dead rubbers but I do like India in this match. I don’t just like them because they’ve already won the series but this Sydney track should best suit their game and I remain unconvinced Australia really care about this series.
Only Aaron Finch has really scored any runs for Australia in this series and he’s out of this match so that isn’t ideal. We’ve seen throughout the series that Australia just can’t score aggressively against spin regularly enough to be competitive and if this wicket does turn that is only going to be exaggerated even more so I will take India here.
I’ll have a dabble in the man of the match market too where Yuvraj Singh has to be a big price at 20/1. Although Dhoni has laughed off the suggestion that wholesale changes will be made that doesn’t mean that the batting order won’t change to get Yuvraj some much needed time in the middle.
Any sort of cameo and a brief spell with the ball would see him in the mix long enough to catch the eye in this match so at 20/1 I’ll pay to see how much of a part the big hitter can play in what I hope is an India win.
Back India to win 3rd T20 for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Bet365
Back Y.Singh Man of the Match for a 1/10 stake at 21.00 with Bet365
