It is game on between India and South Africa after the home side finally won a match against the Proteas on Wednesday to level the ODI series up at 1-1. There are three matches left to play in the series, the first of which comes on Sunday, where the winner will go one up with two to play.
India head to Rajkot with their confidence up after winning the previous ODI. It would be stretching it to say that they produced a perfect performance in Indore but from the position they went into that match they will have been delighted with what they served up and to get the win when things looked in the balance for so long.
South Africa will be disappointed not to chase down a moderate score by today’s standards in the previous match but the fact they restricted India to an average score should give them some confidence. They just need their middle and lower order to fire and they will be extremely competitive again.
Neither side are expected to make too many changes for this match. India may stick with a winning side while South Africa are likely to give their side another go after they had played fairly well in the lead up to the previous match so settled sides should make for an exciting game.
This will be just the second ODI held at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot. England won the first one here which was a high scoring match where both sides scored over 300 runs and something similar is expected in this match with dew unlikely to be a factor.
India are finding some momentum and importantly for them MS Dhoni delivered in the previous match. Generally when he delivers his side take plenty of confidence and deliver around him so South Africa might well have their work cut out here.
If this is a high scoring game then I have to favour India over South Africa. India are used to playing in high scoring matches so don’t feel the scoreboard pressure as much as we saw in the opening match when they should have chased over 300 with relative ease before pacing it all wrong at the end. They’re the ones with momentum though and I’m with them here.
I also think the boundaries line could be low in this match. There were over 50 boundaries in the previous match when the scoring was generally quite low and the first game wasn’t as high scoring as this is expected to be and there were 62 boundaries in that match so that all makes me think on a smaller ground here (Alastair Cook hit a six in the previous ODI here) that a 63.5 line will be covered.
Finally JP Duminy served me well in the T20 series and given that he came in at four in the last match he is worth chancing to top score for the tourists in this match. Duminy can play both the aggressive innings or the rebuilding one and he plays seam and spin equally as well and in a South African line up which looks devoid of depth 7/1 on the left hander looks good value to me.
Back India to win 3rd ODI for a 4/10 stake at 1.85 with Sportingbet
Back Over 63.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
Back JP.Duminy Top South Africa Batsman for a 1/10 stake at 8.00 with Ladbrokes
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