Bangladesh finish their tour of South Africa with a couple of T20 matches and the first of those comes from Bloemfontein on Thursday as the tourists look to get something out of their spell in the rainbow nation.
South Africa have bigger things to come this summer but they are unbeaten in the five matches these two have played so far across the other formats and will be eager to maintain their 100% record.
South Africa
This has never been South Africa’s strongest format. That isn’t to say they are not good at it or indeed that they can’t play it, it is just a sign of how good they are in the other two disciplines of the game. They have played seven T20s in 2017 and have won just three of them. They lost 2-1 at home to Sri Lanka at the start of year and won’t want to end the year with a defeat.
One of the reasons for their indifferent form has been that they have not always selected their strongest side when playing 20 overs. It should be said they have gone down that path in this series too so it will be interesting how they fare. They do look a lot stronger with the bat than they have in previous outings.
Bangladesh
Surprisingly, given their vast improvement in the 50 over format, Bangladesh have not shown the same level of quality in their 20 over game. Their win against Sri Lanka in their last T20 international halted a run of eight defeats on the spin and while the margin of victory was emphatic Sri Lanka haven’t done much to frank the form since.
The issue Bangladesh have in this format is the very one which was exposed so brutally in the three ODIs recently. They just don’t have the depth in their bowling attack to restrict sides throughout the whole 20 overs. They have spells when they contain but ultimately they don’t pick up enough wickets and pay the price in the end.
Team News
South Africa will be skippered by JP Duminy for this series as Faf du Plessis is out injured. Kagiso Rabada and Imran Tahir are being rested so the likes of Aaron Phangiso and Beuran Hendricks should get a chance to shine.
Bangladesh are also under a different captain from the ODIs. Shakib-al-Hasan is now the 20 over captain but he’ll go into battle without arguably his two most important players in this format in Tamim Iqbal and Mustafizur Rahman.
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Betting
I understand the thought process that Bangladesh are a big price given all the changes that South Africa have made but I don’t trust their bowling attack to deliver the goods against what is still a powerful Proteas batting line up.
There is no reason why Bangladesh won’t put up runs in this match though. We saw them fare pretty well with the bat in the ODIs and they won’t have to worry about facing Rabada, Parnell or Tahir in this match. I actually think the 20 overs suits them better with the bat but the gap between their quality with the bat and weakness with the ball is much bigger in this format.
Given all that I expect to see the runs flow over the course of this one so the total runs line of 304.5 looks very much on the low side so I’ll take the over.
Tips
WON – Back Over 304.5 runs for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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