Australia and Pakistan have completed their Test series and on Friday they depart on a five match ODI series which will act as the start of the preparation for both sides for the Champions Trophy later in the year.
Australia head into the series as the number one side in this format of the game and they will be out to prove their worth. Pakistan are down in eighth so they need a strong run of wins to get themselves up the ranking list.
Schedule
1st ODI: Jan 13 at Brisbane
2nd ODI: Jan 15 at Melbourne
3rd ODI: Jan 19 at Perth
4th ODI: Jan 22 at Sydney
5th ODI: Jan 26 at Adelaide
Australia
The world champions have won four of their last five series with the only blot on that record being in South Africa when they sent a second string bowling attack to keep their main players fresh for the heavy schedule they are currently embarking on.
This is the first time we will have seen them in this format since they completed an emphatic win over New Zealand in the Chappell Hadlee series last month. Since then they have made some changes to their personnel to keep things fresh and it will be interesting to see how they all perform here.
Pakistan
Pakistan have won two of their last three series in ODI cricket and five of their last eight in total so they will head into this series in impressive form and full of confidence in this format of the game. They won their last series against the West Indies but this is a clear step up on that opponent.
Misbah doesn’t play ODI cricket anymore so Azhar Ali skippers the side in this format of the game. Pakistan have brought in some reinforcements from the squad that was here for the Test series and they look to be full of quality so they should have everything in place to put up a decent fight here.
Head to Head
The head to head record between these two doesn’t make good reading for Pakistan. You have to go all the way back to 2002 for the last time Pakistan won a series against Australia and they have only won 31 of 93 ODIs in total against them. Australia have 58 wins in that time and are pretty dominant Australia.
Betting
I hope Pakistan can offer something in this series but I don’t think they will win it. I think that would be a tough ask for anyone let alone a side in alien conditions and I expect the series to play out the way Pakistan’s one in England did. Australia are pretty short though and the correct scores don’t really interest me so I’ll go to the player markets for a bet.
I’m going to focus on the top Pakistan batsman market where understandably given his amazing form in the Test series Azhar Ali is all the rage. I get that but he has the captaincy issues to focus on in this series too and in a side which could be getting a bit of a beating that might distract him from his batting.
With that in mind I’m going to go with Babar Azam who has an amazing record in this format. His last three ODI innings have all been centuries and he nailed 98 in the warm up match on this tour. The Test series didn’t go as planned for him but he’s in a good groove in ODIs and I think he can outscore the erratic Sharjeel and Shoaib Malik and Umar Akmal who bat too low for my liking.
Tips
WON – Back B.Azam Top Pakistan Series Batsman for a 2/10 stake at 5.50 with Bet365
Back him here:
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