So far this summer England have faced the West Indies and Pakistan and now a third touring side looks to pit their wits against them when Australia start a three match T20 series with Eoin Morgan’s men at the Ageas Bowl on Friday evening.
England go into this series off the back of drawing the three match show with Pakistan over the last week while for Australia this is their first cricket of any kind apart from their own in house warm up matches while they underwent the quarantine period.
England
There were clear weaknesses in the England displays against Pakistan, most of which came with the ball although to be fair to their bowling unit they were missing some big players and they were bowling on a couple of absolute roads against a Pakistan side who never stopped coming at them. They have their main men back for this series so we should expect a much better showing from that department, but we will need to see that.
I don’t think there are ever any concerns about England with the bat but the last match just acted as a reminder that teams have good death bowling at this level and with that in mind it is always worth being ahead of the game. The only real trouble that England have when it comes to batting is working out how best to utilise their key players and make sure they face as much of the bowling as they can. Their batting order here will be interesting.
Australia
Given how long it has been since they were last in action, there is a bit of an unknown element to Australia in this match. One thing we do know for sure is they will be coming over to win. To go through all the quarantining and get themselves back into action for three T20s and three ODIs in the present world would have taken a lot of motivating so if they are going through all that they will want to win, so there will be no prepping for the future or anything like that.
In a lot of ways Australia are the opposite to England usually. Their bowling is usually very reliable regardless of who it is that they employ with the ball whereas their batting can be a little sketchy. They often get caught out not knowing what their best batting line up is in this format and whether to go for all out power or include a bit of nous. The problem with including some nous is they usually have to leave someone with a bit reputation out which isn’t as easy as it sounds.
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Team News
England will be changed from the side which played Pakistan. Jos Buttler is back in the squad and he’ll open the batting while there are expected returns for Sam Curran and Jofra Archer who will replace Lewis Gregory and Saqib Mahmood. The other choice to make is whether Tom Banton bats three or Dawid Malan does.
Despite his good form in the warm up matches Marnus Labuschagne is not expected to be included in the team for this match. Mitchell Marsh is expected to get a game while Kane Richardson is likely to be the third seamer.
Betting
We saw plenty of runs and plenty of boundaries in the matches between England and Pakistan and I expect to see that trend continue in this series. The pitches at the Ageas Bowl aren’t quite the roads that they are at Old Trafford but to be fair to the Southampton venue they are not a million miles behind. Australia were said to be delighted with the pitches in the warm up matches which suggests there is plenty of pace in them. The outfield is always immaculate here and we have two powerful batting line ups on show so with that in mind the over 36.5 boundaries looks a good bet here.
I’ll also take a chance on Alex Carey to top score for Australia. It is unsure where he’ll bat at the minute but he has experience of English conditions both from the World Cup last summer and his spell with Sussex in the Blast last season. He utilised that in the warm up matches where he filled his boots against an Australia attack which is probably better than the one he is going to face here. Assuming he gets in with nobody having gone ballistic ahead of him, the 12/1 on Carey top scoring could well pay out.
Tips
Back Over 36.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.73 with William Hill
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Back A.Carey Top Australia Batsman for a 1/10 stake at 13.00 with BetVictor
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