The international summer concludes in England this week when Ben Stokes and his side play host to South Africa in what is a deciding third Test which as ever takes place at The Oval, the usual venue to end the season.
South Africa opened the series with an emphatic win at Lord’s and then England replied in kind at Old Trafford so there is everything to play for at The Oval in what will hopefully be a tense and tight decider which goes against what we’ve seen so far.
England
If you are an England fan you will have seen this story before. They have been relentless slow starters in Test series in recent times but the longer it goes on the better they get. The reason for that is their domestic schedule is absolute nonsense and their players have little to no red ball cricket in the lead up to a series. Those players are into the series now though so we should expect a strong showing at the very least.
England will know the key to success in this match will be determined by how well they bat. In truth, they didn’t bat brilliantly in their innings at Manchester but two men got big scores and that was enough. They will be looking for their top order to come to the party here. If they do that then in what are expected to be cloudy conditions throughout this match you would imagine England will have the bowlers to do some damage.
South Africa
After winning the opening match as easily as they did, South Africa will have been hoping to follow that up and win the series with a game to spare but that isn’t how it played out and now they have to recover and bounce back and win it in a decider. The good thing for the Proteas is that they have had a week off to take stock of everything and reset and get themselves ready to give this everything they have got.
In truth, South Africa haven’t really batted that well in the series so far but you sense if they are going to win it then their batters will need to come to the party. Their technique is going to be challenged here and they will need to stand up to that. We saw at Lord’s that if they can put a manageable score on the board their bowlers have the quality to get the job done. The problem is not many of those batters look in great nick.
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Team News
England will be forced into a change for this match after the freak injury that Jonny Bairstow sustained between the last match and this. His Yorkshire teammate Harry Brook will be the man to replace him.
South Africa will also have to make a change for this match with Rassie van der Dussen ruled out for the foreseeable future. It looks like Ryan Rickleton is going to be the man to replace him after a successful spell at Northamptonshire.
Betting
It looks like we are going to lose some time on the opening day of the match but after that the forecast for the Kennington part of London isn’t too bad and that makes me think we will get a result in this game. 32 of the overs lost on the opening day will be able to be made back up again and England have enough players in their middle order to put time back into the game anyway so I like a result here and I think England can finish off a summer of rejuvenation in Test cricket with a win.
England were terrible in that opening match of the series but half of their team were playing their first cricket in four weeks and the other half were coming in from The Hundred so they understandably needed the run. I would be a little less buoyant about the England chances had South Africa played a tour match in the week off but they haven’t and I think that could be costly because their batters don’t look comfortable in English conditions. That can be the difference. I like England here.
Tips
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