Much like the T20s last week, the ODI series between India and England has gone to a deciding match which takes place in Pune on Sunday. Strictly speaking there are just 10 World Cup qualifying points on this match but it feels more important than that.
India have already defeated England in the Test matches and the T20s and with the Asian powerhouse touring England later in the year if they can win the ODIs as well it might have real meaning moving forward. England will be out to stop that from happening.
India
India have already spurned one chance to win this series when they lost the second game. It might have been quite a damaging loss because India executed their gameplan pretty much to perfection but they were still blown away and that might send a few shockwaves through their camp. We know India like to build up their batting innings into a crescendo and that is exactly what they did and to be fair to them they maximised the back end of their innings to post a very good total.
A combination of some ordinary bowling and some brutal batting meant that they never looked like defending that total and it will be interesting to see how they approach this game. I don’t think they can get anything more out of their innings in the style that they go about things so will they look to be more expansive earlier and risk not posting a competitive total or just rely on their bowlers to be a lot better at protecting whatever score they post.
England
England have the luxury of not really having any of those problems to deal with. In many ways their bowlers have little pressure on them for a couple of reasons. They get the chance to settle into their work while India go about building their innings and also it doesn’t really matter how many they concede, they will back their batting to chase a score down. Obviously the fewer they concede the better but it is nice to know that they have plenty of backup should they need it.
England could be forgiven for thinking that they should have already won this series by now after they got into a wonderful position in the opening game of the series only to cough up that opportunity. They certainly didn’t make any mistake in the second game and as world champions they will be looking to stamp their authority over India in this deciding match of the series. If England have saved their best for last they are in a good position.
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Team News
There is no doubt that India will change their bowling attack. Whether that means bowling Hardik Pandya at some point in the match or changing personnel remains to be seen but it will be a huge shock if Kuldeep Yadav gets another go after two very poor outings. Yuzvendra Chahal should have been in for the previous game but he’ll come in here. T Natarajan could also come in.
England haven’t given up hope of Sam Billings being available for this match and he might replace Liam Livingstone if he is. Mark Wood was rested for the previous game but Tom Curran continues to be expensive so that switch is a pretty obvious one.
Betting
The sixes have been good to us in this series and I’m going to finish in that manner here as I’m taking the over in them again. To be fair to bookmakers they have upped the line but I’m still not convinced it is high enough at 18.5 as I expect a lot more of what we have seen in the series already, potentially even more if all the key players get in and get firing. The ground just isn’t all that big and to be fair to the groundsman the pitches have been magnificent and nothing is likely to change in the 36hrs or so between matches.
There were 34 sixes in the previous match, 20 of them coming from the bat of the English batsmen and once again Jos Buttler didn’t hit a single six. He rarely goes a whole series without exploding into life so we could well see some fireworks from him in this match. India hit 14 sixes themselves and they don’t really start going until the last 15 overs or so. They’ll have to go a bit earlier here even if it is only five overs earlier so however they come I’m expecting plenty more sixes here.
Tips
Back Over 18.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.95 with BetVictor
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