England and Australia are set to embark on a five match ODI series on Thursday afternoon with the opening match coming from the Ageas Bowl in Southampton.
With this being a five match series there isn’t the intense necessity to get off to a winning start like there would be in a three match equivalent but whoever does win will be able to head to Lord’s at the weekend under less pressure than the losers.
England go into the match looking to build on both the win in the T20 against Australia on Monday afternoon and their win in the ODI series against New Zealand earlier in the summer. At the beginning of the summer we were promised a positive aggressive brand of cricket in the limited overs formats and so far that’s exactly what we’ve got.
Australia have been well beaten in the Test matches and they’ve lost the T20 as well so they will be looking to salvage something from a disappointing tour in this series. They are the world champions in this format and right now it is probably their strongest format but they seem to have an eye on the future so whether they are as strong over the next two weeks remains to be seen.
England have a couple of selection issues ahead of this match. They have to decide on the personnel and the order of their top three and then decide which seamers to leave out. They have a number of options with Woakes, Willey and Plunkett in the seam department but it might be that only one plays.
Australia appear to have chosen Joe Burns as their opening partner alongside David Warner which means Shane Watson will bat in the middle order. Glenn Maxwell is likely to be a floater in the order. The make up of their attack will be interesting with no recognised spinner in the squad apart from Ashton Agar leaving Glenn Maxwell as the only other real slow option.
Australia played a warm up match for this series against Ireland last week and it must be said they weren’t entirely convincing so they will need to up their game to make a positive impression in this opener.
That said they probably have the right venue to make a good start because the Ageas Bowl isn’t one of England’s best places in this format. England have played here 12 times with six wins and six defeats but they have lost their last four ODIs on this ground. Australia have won three of their four matches here.
I don’t think this is a ground which suits England’s game so I’m not surprised that their recent record here is so poor. I might have considered taking Australia but even allowing for England’s poor return on this ground the price on the tourists is nothing special so I’ll look to other markets for a bet.
The sixes line for this match is at 8.5 which is quite high when you think there has been 18 ODIs on this ground and apart from one which was shortened to 23 overs not one of them has contained more than nine sixes. This is a high scoring ground with scores of 300+ made regularly but the boundaries aren’t brought in here usually which makes hitting sixes more difficult. Given that not one match here of a full length like this one will be has contained nine sixes I have to take the unders here.
Another bet I like is for England’s captain Eoin Morgan to hit 50 or more runs. Morgan has a good record on this ground and averages over 70 in ODI cricket here. He has two tons and a 71 on this ground in ODI cricket and he looked in excellent form in the T20 on Monday which was surprising as he needed time off recently to rest and recover his form. He was hitting it as well as ever though and given his record here I’m prepared to back him to make 50.
Finally this used to be Glenn Maxwell’s home ground when he played for Hampshire so he’ll know the dimensions of it well and he’ll be looking to take advantage of that and at 7/1 he’s decent value to top the Australia run scoring here. When these two sides met in the World Cup he was the second highest scorer to Finch but Finch isn’t around here so Maxwell could be the one to beat if he gets in early enough.
Back Under 8.5 sixes for a 5/10 stake at 2.10 with Skybet
Back E.Morgan to score 50+ for a 3/10 stake at 3.00 with Ladbrokes
Back G.Maxwell Top Australia Batsman for a 1/10 stake at 8.00 with Ladbrokes
