The opening ODI between India and South Africa was an entertaining and high scoring match and neutrals will be hoping for more of the same when the two sides do battle in Raipur in the second game of three on Wednesday.
India head into the contest knowing that this is their first chance to get over the line in the series while South Africa know already that if they are to emulate what they did in the Test matches then they have to come out on top here.
India
India will have been delighted to draw first blood in the series. It was an ODI where you kind of felt like they dominated affairs right from the beginning but in the end they had to ride a bit of a scare before they eventually got themselves over the line. They will certainly feel good about their batting from that first game. It is always a good thing when the two key men in a side contribute from the start of a series and that is what happened so you would expect India to be fine with the bat.
They will want to be better with the ball. There were genuine excuses regarding the dew coming down and hurting them in the second half of their bowling effort but they are all experienced bowlers who are used to bowling with a wet ball so they will want to go better here if they are asked to bowl second. That was their first white ball cricket in a while though so you would imagine they will come on for the run so to speak.
South Africa
Despite having been out of the opening game for so long, South Africa will actually have left Ranchi disappointed that they didn’t get over the line in the end. They were a couple of full tosses being hit cleanly away from pulling off an unlikely win in that game. There should be some natural improvement to come from them with players having come in after missing out on the Test series and if there is then there is no reason why South Africa can’t be competitive here.
They won’t need to be told that they need to bowl better if they are going to make things more comfortable here but to their credit they ran into a couple of legends of the white ball game in excellent form so we shouldn’t really hold that against them. They would like a few more runs at the top of the order but were they to get that then we saw in the opening game that they have enough batting depth to get the job done, especially if they are chasing.
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Team News
There was a bit of surprise that Ruturaj Gaikwad and Washington Sundar played in the opening game when Rishabh Pant is in the squad. The fact that neither did much could open the door for the exciting keeper-batter.
South Africa are expected to bring their captain Temba Bavuma and leading spin bowler Keshav Maharaj into their side for this one. The latter will most likely replace Prenelan Subrayen and you would imagine one of Quinton de Kock or Ryan Rickelton will sit out for the former.
Betting
The first match was very high scoring between these two and there is nothing to suggest that this one won’t be either, especially when you consider the likes of Aiden Markram, Quinton de Kock, Ryan Rickelton and Ruturaj Gaikwad were all out for single figures in the opening game and you wouldn’t think that is going to happen all the time. I wouldn’t put anyone off the run line for this match with it being in the 560 range but I actually like the boundaries here.
The boundary line here is 63.5 which on the face of it feels a little high but it isn’t actually that high at all when you consider that there was more than 80 of them in that first game. We saw in that first game that neither bowling attack are able to sustain the pressure on the opposing batting unit and with dew likely to be a factor once again then that will detract from the quality of the bowling. There is nothing to suggest the bat won’t dominate the bat again and over 63.5 boundaries appeals to me here.
Tips
Back Over 63.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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