After a dramatic series win over Australia last week, India do battle with South Africa in a three-match T20 series which gets underway in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday as both teams continue their preparation for the T20 World Cup.
That tournament is less than a month away so both sides will be using these three matches to find their best combinations for that event but confidence going into that competition is also at stake here so this should be competitive.
India
The Indians stumbled out of the blocks against Australia but with their back against the wall they found their best cricket and put a bit of a marker down to a potential challenge at the T20 World Cup. They will be looking to do the same here. There is no excuse about starting slowly in this series though as they are all in a groove and up to speed so all eyes will be on India to see how they go in this opening match.
India batted very well against Australia and that was certainly a positive because they went into that series with one or two questions beginning to be asked about their batting. The bowling left a bit to be desired though, although in fairness to their bowlers they were bowling on pitches which had absolutely nothing in them and with the dew factor hampering them further. They’ll hope to bowl better here to gain some confidence to take to Australia with them next month.
South Africa
The South Africans were in India for a T20 series a couple of months ago and went 2-0 up before surrendering the advantage to draw 2-2 but they have another chance to remind everyone of their T20 credentials. Since that series they have been to England and won and they looked very good in doing so there so they should be heading back to India, and to Australia next month, believing they can do good things on the biggest stage.
Usually we go into a T20 series involving South Africa wondering how their batting will do but in recent series the question has been how their seam bowlers will fare. They have some solid batters at the top of the order who set the foundation for the fireworks from the younger explosive batters in the middle order. They have a couple of banker seamers but then the rest of the attack can be exposed a little and they need to protect those.
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Team News
India have chosen to rest Hardik Pandya for this series but his likely replacement, Deepak Hooda, has been ruled out with injury so that could offer Rishabh Pant back into the side. Arshdeep Singh has the chance to show he’s the man to be used at the death next month.
South Africa were always going to have an issue over the personnel of their batting when Temba Bavuma regained fitness and it will be interesting to see how they shoehorn him into the side. The other decision revolves around whether to play Andile Phehlukwayo or the bigger hitting Dwaine Pretorius.
Betting
We saw the boundaries peppered in the series between India and Australia and I expect nothing different here. This is one of the outgrounds in India which is staging a T20 international for just the third time so you would imagine they want to put on a show and provide a wicket which is true for batting. In the last match here West Indies hit 12 sixes in a chase of 170 which shows us how accessible the boundaries are here.
In the series these two played earlier in the year three of the four first innings were 169/6 or more so these two can certainly get after the other and they should have the ideal situation to do that here. India are resting a couple of bowlers and both teams look like they are going to bat deep so I expect the boundaries to keep on flowing here. We saw a line in the 40s covered in the two completed matches last week and we have one at 39.5 here which I also expect to be surpassed.
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