India will conclude their tour of Australia on Saturday when the two sides meet in the final T20 match of the scheduled five when The Gabba opens its doors for what should be a cracking finale of the series.
India begin the day knowing that they have a share of the spoils and a win here will see them leave Australia with a statement series win. Australia might have more than an eye on The Ashes now but will be keen to level the series in this one.
Australia
When you consider that they drew first blood in the series, Australia will be disappointed that they now can’t win it but they still have a chance of avoiding defeat in it if they can come out on top at a venue which historically is a strong one for them, particularly in the red ball format of the game. The problem that they have is they are down to their fringe players in some key areas with their minds largely on The Ashes from here on in, which is understandable with it less than two weeks away.
Australia may well have thought that they had a good chance of winning the last match at the halfway stage when they had restricted India to a total which they would have thought was chasable but they made absolutely no impression on it and fell to a ridiculously comfortable defeat. That was the second time in the series that they didn’t cover themselves in glory and that is something they will need to put right here.
India
Given that India made a bit of a pigs ear of the first completed match in the series, to have a share of it wrapped up with a game to spare is very much to their credit. They will be looking to win the series now and are probably favourites to do so given how dominant they have been for the majority of the last two matches. Were that to happen then they would have put down a decent enough marker for the World Cup which is beginning to loom on the horizon.
India have won the two matches that they have come out on top in via different routes. The first one their batters did the majority of the work and then in the second win it was down to their bowlers. If they are able to put the two together then they will be tough to beat but on what is usually a high scoring ground, India will probably need their batters to come good here. There is no shortage of talent in their ranks so it wouldn’t be a surprise if they delivered in this final match.
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Team News
Australia are hoping to have Mitchell Owen back for this match and if he is then he would be expected to replace Josh Philippe in the middle order with that role not really suited to the latter. That is likely to be the only change.
India have no reason to make any changes after an emphatic win last time out although they are probably not going to find the same level of spin in Brisbane as they did in Carrara which could open the door to another seamer coming in.
Betting
I expect to see a good end to the series on a ground which is usually conducive to plenty of runs and plenty of boundaries. There is the slight concern that Australia will fluff their lines with the bat again but they have never been the best players of spin so conditions went right against them in Carrara and that just isn’t going to be the case here. That makes me think we are going to see a match more in keeping with the one in Hobart than Carrara.
In that clash there was 49 boundaries and that was in a match where four of the Australian top five faced a total of 25 balls combined. Both of these teams have plenty of batting depth and Australia are definitely missing some firepower with the ball and are probably going to be coming out hard with the bat knowing that they need more runs than a par total. The boundaries line for this one is 41.5 and on a relatively small ground straight I expect that to be covered.
Tips
Back Over 41.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
