Bangladesh pulled off what many saw as a surprise win in the opening ODI against South Africa on Friday and when the two sides meet in the second game of the three in Johannesburg on Sunday they have the first chance to secure the series.
South Africa head to The Wanderers knowing they have to win to force a decider but this is about more than that. There are valuable World Cup Super Series points up for grabs and the home side are in desperate need of them.
South Africa
Clearly South Africa will be disappointed to lost the opening match and actually I’m sure they will be honest enough to admit that the 38 run margin flattered them because some lusty late hitting got them close in a match they were never in from start to finish really. They did start well with the ball in terms of restricting the run rate but you sensed that them not getting wickets in that spell would come back to haunt them and that is exactly how it proved.
They let themselves down at the end of the innings when they were carted to all parts and were never really in the run chase at any stage. To be fair to the Proteas their batting effort wasn’t helped by losing Quinton de Kock late on prior to the match and having to juggle their batting order around at the last minute but at the same time there were some disappointing dismissals which you wouldn’t have expected to happen but for scoreboard pressure.
Bangladesh
When you consider that Bangladesh played that opening match without a warm up game in these conditions you have to give them all the credit in the world for delivering the sort of performance that they did in the first game. The scary thing from a South Africa point of view is that often when a side hasn’t had a warm up match they get even better in the second game when they have acclimatised to conditions. If that happens here the hosts could be in trouble.
The positive for Bangladesh is that they were able to be competitive with the ball in hand. That is the one question mark over them whenever they travel overseas, although it has to be said there is a better balance to their attack these days not to mention quality. The one doubt which never existed over the Bangladesh side was their ability to put runs on the board with the bat and we saw all of that in the opening game. There might even be more to come in that regard too.
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Team News
South Africa will be hoping to have Quinton de Kock back and available for this match. He will replace Kyle Verreynne if he has recovered from his illness. Tabraiz Shamsi was surprisingly left out of the opening match but he could well return here.
Bangladesh have no immediate need to make any changes to their side. They do have players in reserve to come into the team but you would have to think they will attempt to get the series won before they consider switching anyone.
Betting
I took the over in the runs in the opening match of the series on Friday and they sailed past the line. That line has increased up to 520.5 but I’m not convinced that it has gone up enough. I say that because this match is at Johannesburg where we know the ball flies further and faster. The outfield here is lightning fast and the ground is smaller than the one these two sides just played on in Centurion so those are ready made reasons to think the over is still a player here.
Another reason would be the possible return of Quinton de Kock for South Africa which would naturally improve their batting and with it their likelihood of scoring runs. Bangladesh might well come on for the run as well with the bat, especially early in their innings where they were very sedate in that opening match so there are so many reasons why we could see even more runs here. The fact is we don’t need to see more runs in this one because there were 590 of them in the opener. I like the over here.
Tips
Back Over 520.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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