Pakistan end their tour of Australia on Thursday when they take on the home side in the fifth and final ODI in Adelaide. Australia sealed the series in Sydney at the weekend so the two will be playing for pride here but on Australia Day down under there is likely to be plenty of that around.
Australia
This isn’t a complete dead rubber for Australia. They head off on a mini tour of New Zealand straight after this in which they play more ODIs so they will want to be going there with plenty of confidence behind them even allowing for the fact they are not taking a full strength side there. A win here would give them that.
With potentially high scoring matches to come in New Zealand a really positive and explosive performance with the bat wouldn’t be a bad thing even though they may not need it to win this match given the quality of their bowling attack.
Pakistan
There are a couple of months before Pakistan’s next assignment in this format of the game but there will be no shortage of things to work on between this series and that one. The primary thing that has let Pakistan down in this series has been their fielding and dropped catches have denied them a genuine shot at winning the last two matches.
Pakistan have done their job with the bat for the most part in this series. Since levelling the series they have put up over 250 on both occasions but that hasn’t been enough to get the job done. You could argue they needed 280 and beyond but they would have been way beyond 300 with their run rate in Sydney but they couldn’t find a partnership in the back end of their innings.
Team News
Billy Stanlake has headed off to New Zealand already so he won’t be a part of this match which leads me to think the bowling attack will be unchanged. The team itself might be too.
Pakistan might decide to make changes and bring those who need a game in. Junaid Khan could be vulnerable after an indifferent last game while Mohammad Nawaz could be brought into the side.
Adelaide Oval
There have been 81 ODIs on this ground in the past. Australia have played in 48 of those with a 33-15 winning record. Pakistan have won just four of their 18 matches on this ground.
We know the boundaries square are very short and the pitch is usually good for batting but scores haven’t been as high in ODIs as you would expect. Having seen the wicket play well in the Big Bash recently I’m expecting a higher scoring match than previous on this ground.
Betting
I keep saying it but betting on dead rubbers is never easy because invariably teams change without much pre-warned notice so as ever I’m going to leave the match outcome alone.
One bet I do like is for there to be more than 10.5 sixes. It wouldn’t be the biggest surprise in the world if Australia send one of their lower order up the line up to get some time at the crease and with nothing to lose Pakistan can let the ball fly even more than they have been doing.
Both sides have been clearing the ropes freely in this series. We’ve just had a dozen sixes between the two at a bigger Sydney ground than this so another 11 should be well within reach given these square boundaries.
Tips
WON – Back Over 10.5 sixes for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
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