The Champions Trophy heads back to Group B on Tuesday for the heavyweight clash between the world champions Australia and the T20 World Cup finalists South Africa with the winner putting one foot into the semi-final.
These two sides both won their opening match and both cruised to victory in many ways so this one could determine who wins the group as well as going close to securing a semi-final spot. This is nicely set up to be a huge match.
Australia
The world champions headed to Pakistan with a few questions to answer given the injuries that they had. They hadn’t exactly been overworked in the 50 over format in recent times either but you wouldn’t have though that with their win in their first match against England. We knew going into the tournament that there was a good chance their bowlers would go around the park initially while the pitches were flat and that the batting would have to get the job done and that is now it proved to be.
To be fair to those Australian bowlers, they did fairly well to restrict England to just over 350 in that match because for a period in the innings 375 and more was on the cards. Once they had done that, despite a bit of a rocky start with the bat, once they had established a partnership they were able to get stuck into the run chase and ran out comfortable winners. You would imagine that there is some natural improvement to come from them too which is never a bad thing.
South Africa
The South Africans entered the tournament with some mixed reviews in terms of expectation. They were expected to go well when you consider that they made the final of the T20 World Cup last year but then injuries to bowlers in the lead up to the event probably dampened that expectancy, while all at the same time the elephant in the room of their record in these competitions keeping things realistic. Those expectations might have gone up after their opening game though.
That was because South Africa controlled their first outing against Afghanistan from start to finish. They probably had a bit of an advantage having competed in the Pakistan Tri-series ahead of the tournament but they batted very well and set the innings up so that they could explode at the end and then even with the injuries they have to some seamers, they were able to keep on coming with the ball. They will probably need a slight improvement on that here but they have everything that suggests they can be competitive here.
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Team News
Australia probably have no need to make any changes from the win over England in the first game but Spencer Johnson was a little expensive so Sean Abbott might come in for him should they look to make any switches.
South Africa were without Heinrich Klaasen for the opening game of the tournament and the consensus is that he will face a fitness test ahead of this one. Tony de Zorzi would be the man most likely to make way if Klaasen is ready.
Betting
This should be a cracking match between two sides who played really well in their opening game. My hunch is that South Africa will win the contest because they have a more balanced side even if they probably don’t have the best team and generally the better balanced side will win but there is said to be a bit of weather around which is putting me off so I am going to head to the player markets for a bet on this one and it is the performance of Marnus Labuschagne that I like.
His line is 36.5 which looks on the low side to me, especially when you consider that he has just totalled 97 points in the win over England. He could easily cover this total with the bat. He did that against England but also against England he got a bowl and took two wickets and here at the same ground which the match was played on the previous day on Monday, you would imagine there will be some turn so he could well get a bowl here too and South Africa aren’t the greatest players of spin. He actually bowled some of the death overs against England which might produce a cheap wicket. Two wickets gets the job done here, his ODI average of 36 gets us on the edge of it and a combination of average showings with both cover it. I like the over here.
Tips
Back M.Labuschagne’s Performance – Over 36.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
