The ODI series between South Africa and Australia will continue on Saturday when the two sides battle it out for the second time in Bloemfontein with both teams looking to carry on fine tuning their preparation for the upcoming World Cup.
As far as this series is concerned, Australia drew first blood on Thursday when they got home in a match which ended up becoming a lot more dramatic than they would have wanted it to. They could go two up with three to play here but South Africa will be out to level the series.
South Africa
While I don’t think the batting conditions were easy batting first in the opening match on Thursday, I think South Africa will be disappointed with the lack of intent that they showed when they had the bat in hand. I don’t necessarily mean not wanting to score runs but more hanging back and allowing good balls to do things which became impossible to handle. That is something I would expect them to rectify rather quickly here.
The big positive for South Africa from that opening match was the way they got stuck in with the ball. I don’t think anyone really thought they had enough runs on the board at the end of their innings but 20 overs into the bowling effort it looked like plenty. In the end the Proteas were a wicket away from opening an end up and potentially winning the game so if they sort the batting out they will give themselves every chance here.
Australia
I would imagine the Australians were happy with much of their opening performance in the series. The overriding intention in this series is to build momentum to take to India with them for the World Cup where they will feel they have a leading chance of coming away with the title but they will also want things to work on just to keep themselves sharp ahead of that tournament. I would imagine they will be looking to get game time into those who need it as well.
One thing Australia certainly would have been pleased with from that first game was their bowling effort. They are still missing what you would call some first choice bowlers but they were able to keep South Africa under pressure throughout the innings and never really let them free. They would probably have wanted someone earlier in their batting effort to take the responsibility of getting them home but they got the job done in the end.
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Team News
Given that they were named in the squad for these ODIs it was a big surprise not to see either Tabraiz Shamsi or Anrich Nortje in the opening match but with South Africa a game down they might unleash the pair here.
Australia are going to be forced into a change with Cameron Green not being available having been substituted for concussion on Thursday. He won’t have passed the protocols ahead of this match so Marnus Labuschagne could come in from the start.
Betting
There seems to be a clear intention from Australia to go on the offensive when they have the bat in hand and I’m going to jump on that for this match and back them to hit more than 32.5 boundaries. We have seen in all three T20 matches that they are going right after the bowling and we also saw it for the first 20 or so overs in the opening ODI of the series too. That means it is obviously a clear strategy and one which isn’t going to change from here on in you suspect.
Australia hit 29 boundaries in the opening match of the series even though they were chasing a below par score. They had 25 of those early on in the innings but then when the run chase was in sight they shut up shop and nudged their way to victory. In a full innings I would expect them to put a few extra boundaries on that, especially with Dave Warner only facing two balls in the opening game. I’ll take the Aussies to clear 32.5 boundaries here.
Tips
Back Australia – Over 32.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
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