The final assignment for Australia before their begin their official warm up for the World Cup is to host Pakistan in a five match ODI series over the next couple of weeks. I use the term host loosely as the series will actually take place in the UAE.
This is also the final test for Pakistan before they head to England to launch a campaign to regain the World Cup so you would imagine this will be a competitive set of matches between two sides who are pretty combatant at the best of times.
Schedule
1st ODI: Mar 22 at Sharjah
2nd ODI: Mar 24 at Sharjah
3rd ODI: Mar 27 at Abu Dhabi
4th ODI: Mar 29 at Dubai
5th ODI: Mar 31 at Dubai
Australia
This part of the world hasn’t always been the best for Australia but they will arrive here with plenty of confidence after their final series comeback win against India recently. To be fair to them they should never have been two down with three to play in the first place but having got to that position they did remarkably to still win the series.
They needed that confidence boost though because they had been very flat in this format over the last couple of years. Missing some key players hasn’t helped them but their approach had been left behind too. They look to have rediscovered it at just the right time with the World Cup barely two months away now.
Pakistan
I wouldn’t like to say whether this format is the best for Pakistan or if it is the T20 sphere but either way they know how to come to the party in global tournaments and they will be looking to build up a head of steam for the World Cup in this series. Some fringe players are going to be looked at here which is interesting but with everything wanting to be in England this summer I don’t expect too much of a drop off.
Pakistan’s big advantage is how well they know the conditions and how they suit their bowling attack. They will know the sort of scores that are needed on these wickets and how to go about defending them but at the same time they will also know that they need to formulate plans to score big for when they get to England.
Head-to-Head
These two nations have only played 10 bilateral series against each other in this format. Most of their encounters have come in tri-series and the like. Of those 10 series it is 7-3 to Australia with them having won the last six so they appear to have the wood over Pakistan at the minute. Surprisingly, Australia have won all three series between the two in the UAE.
Australia’s dominance is really highlighted in the match outcomes where they have a pretty significant 22-9 lead with the one no result. That shows that when they win the series they tend to do it in some style. History would certainly suggest Australia are the good things here at least.
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Betting
There isn’t a huge amount that I like in terms of the series betting here, partly because Australia have played a lot of cricket in recent times and partly because Pakistan have left a number of their big guns out so it is a little harder to know what to expect than usual. One man caught my eye in the recent series in India for Australia and I’ll follow up on that here.
Usman Khawaja had a wonderful series there. He put together scores of 50, 38, 104, 91 and 100 as Australia turned that series around and I see no reason why he won’t score well in these condition too. He might need to take a little longer to get himself in against a classy new ball attack but once he’s done that he’s good enough to fill his boots here. Glenn Maxwell is set to miss the first game which will help Khawaja so even at 9/4 I think he can lead the Australian scoring in the series.
Tips
Back U.Khawaja Top Australia Series Batsman for a 3/10 stake at 3.25 with Betfair
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