After an entertaining first match of the series, Pakistan and South Africa meet in the second match of the three game T20 series on Saturday with the series potentially on the line in what should be a good contest in Lahore.
Pakistan edged their way home in the opening match of the series on Thursday so they can claim the series with another win here. South Africa will be eyeing up an unlikely success to force a deciding clash on Sunday.
Pakistan
It wasn’t a perfect performance from Pakistan in the series opener but it was good enough to get the job done and that will please everyone in their camp. Winning when you know there is more to come is a good feeling to have and now the task for them both in this series and indeed the remainder of the year as they build up towards the World T20 is to build on that display and improve game on game.
If they can do that in this match then you would think they would have more than enough to overcome a largely second string South Africa side. You would think there are more runs in the side with a couple of their bigger performers getting out in bizarre ways. Their bowlers will probably feel that there is more in them as well given that most of them were blowing off the cobwebs after a period of inactivity with the exception of one or two.
South Africa
The South Africans gave off a much better performance in the first game than many expected them to do and now their task is to back up that display and put a little bit more on top to get over the line. Even though they were not expected to win the game because of the players they have missing, they probably let one get away from them which will disappoint them, and hopefully from their point of view fuel the fire to deliver the goods here.
South Africa bowled very well in that opening match and although they were given a little bit of help from the Pakistan batsmen and the umpire in restricting them to a par total, they still delivered the goods. Where they let themselves down was with the bat in hand, particularly when it came to rotating the strike against the spin. If they can improve in that department then we saw enough in that first game to suggest they can get over the line here.
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Team News
It will be interesting to see if Pakistan make changes for this match. They won the first game with more to come but Shaheen Afridi in particular has played a lot of cricket. They might want to get the series won before they rest him though.
South Africa may feel they need to make changes. It was something of a surprise that JJ Smuts was left out of the first match and given that Jacques Snyman had a bit of a shocker it would be no surprise if those two switch places.
Betting
I’m expecting another good game of cricket in this match and it is one where I think the sixes is the way to play the contest. I say that for a few reasons. Not only is the line low enough but I think there is the potential for a lot more sixes than what we saw in the opening game, and we saw enough in that match to cover this line given that there were 14 sixes hit in total in a match where you didn’t get the feeling both batting units maxed out.
When you consider that the likes of David Miller and a couple of the bigger hitter Pakistan players never hit a single six there is certainly more to come in this one in terms of the six hitting. We saw on Thursday that the ground is pretty small and I don’t see the wicket being that bad with another match still to come on it on Sunday. I think when you put everything into the melting pot there is a good chance of over 12.5 sixes landing at a tidy price.
Tips
Back Over 12.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Bet365
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