After enjoying a wonderful pair of victories in the T20 matches, Australia will now look to get the better of India over five ODIs with the series getting underway on Saturday. We are now less than three months away from the World Cup so this feels like a bigger series than usual.
Both these teams will be heading to England looking to win that tournament and a win over the other in this series will see them going there with a pep in their step, and maybe something of a psychological advantage.
Schedule
1st ODI: Mar 2 at Hyderabad
2nd ODI: Mar 5 at Nagpur
3rd ODI: Mar 8 at Ranchi
4th ODI: Mar 10 at Chandigarh
5th ODI: Mar 13 at Delhi
India
When these two sides met in Australia recently it was India who came out on top and it was their bowlers who did most of the damage for them in that series. That extended India’s record in this format to 12 wins from their last 13 bilateral series and in between all that they won the Asia Cup last year as well, so the home side are very comfortable in the 50 over surroundings.
I’ve made a fair bit of how light the Indian middle order has looked with the bat over recent times so I’ll be watching this series carefully to see if they have addressed that. There wasn’t too many signs of it in the T20 matches but in home conditions if their depth will come to the fore you would think that it will be here.
Australia
It has not been the easiest 12-18 months for Australia in this format of the game. They have now lost their last six bilateral ODI series and haven’t won one for more than two years. Clearly that is going to have to change soon if they are to build up any sort of confidence heading into the World Cup later in the year. They did play well in the T20s though which should give them some belief for this series.
In these conditions you wonder how Australia will go with the ball. To be fair they were fine for the most part in the T20 matches. India got away from them a bit in the second match but most teams get going in Bangalore. One thing Australia don’t lack is batting depth so if their bowlers can set matches up for them then they should be capable of being competitive here at the very least.
Head to Head
Amazingly these two sides have only competed in 10 bilateral series with most of their ODI meetings coming in tri-series and tournaments of that kind. There is no separating the pair over those 10 series either with both of them having five wins to their name although India have the upper hand recently having won four of the last five. It is 4-4 in India so history shows this could be a tight series.
Australia have a slight edge in the match results in that time. There have been 49 meetings in these bilateral series and Australia have won 24 of them. India have 20 wins and there have been five no results so we should be in for a pretty decent five matches here.
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Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets over the course of this series with the first of them coming in the form of the top Australia series batsman market. If Glenn Maxwell hasn’t done enough to be promoted up the order after his heroics in the T20 matches then he might never have done so. I’m going to take a chance that the penny has dropped for Australia and he bats in the higher middle order rather than down at six or seven. If he does we’ve seen what he can do to this India attack and 13/2 on him top scoring will be too big.
Whenever we see Australia in action these days the thing that is immediately apparent is their struggles to play spin and with that in mind I can’t ignore the 9/4 on Kuldeep Yadav to be the top India bowler in the series. He is very good in Indian conditions and if the India batsmen put up enough runs that Australia can’t just milk him then I expect the left arm Chinaman to come into his own. It might be that India swap their bowlers around after a hectic winter thus far but Kuldeep hasn’t played as much as some so he should stay in. I think he’s the likeliest winner of this market.
Tips
Back G.Maxwell Top Australia Series Batsman for a 1/10 stake at 7.50 with 888sport
Back K.Yadav Top India Series Bowler for a 3/10 stake at 3.25 with 888sport
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