One of the more anticipated series of the winter begins on Friday when South Africa and India start out a three match Test series which gives us the opportunity to look at the games as a whole. These two are the leading two nations in the longer format of the game so we should be in for quite some series.
Schedule
1st Test: 5-9 Jan at Cape Town
2nd Test: 13-17 Jan at Centurion
3rd Test: 24-28 Jan at Johannesburg
South Africa
The South Africans warmed up for this series with a pretty routine win over Zimbabwe in the nonsense of a four day, day night Test match over Christmas but how much preparation it will have given them for this series remains to be seen. It was a positive way to begin a pretty hectic summer though.
Given that we are in the era where home sides are tending to dominate there is a fair bit of pressure on South Africa in this series but as a former number one ranked side they will know all about that. They are a very tough side to beat in any conditions let alone their own ones and I would imagine they will be out to prove that here.
India
Given that they were resting players throughout their recent campaigns against Sri Lanka, I’m a little surprised that India never sneaked a warm up match in before this series. That opens up the doubts about how they will go first up and in a three match series they really need to hit the ground running.
I guess it is fair to say a lot of this series will depend on how the Indian seamers bowl. If they go well then there is every chance they will be competitive because this India batting line up has had plenty of experience of overseas conditions. If they don’t bowl well and India need to rely on their spinners they could be struggling.
Head to Head
There have been 12 previous Test series between these two nations with South Africa victorious in half of those and India in just three. Three series have been drawn too. South Africa have won five of the six series in South Africa with a draw in the other one so India’s task is highlighted perfectly.
When it comes to individual matches things are a lot more level. South Africa have 13 wins to 10 from India. There have also been 10 draws. India have only ever won two Tests in South Africa though.
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Betting
I think South Africa will win the series for a couple of reasons. They are the better side in these conditions and India surprisingly come into it without a warm up match in the country which is quite amazing. The home side are pretty short though so I’ll head to the player markets for a bet.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar is probably India’s best seamer right now and in these conditions I think he can be the biggest threat to the South African batsmen over the course of the three matches. We’ve seen his improvement in Indian conditions in recent times and the movement he can get should assist him massively here. At 5/1 he’s worth a punt in the top India bowler market.
Tips
Back B.Kumar Top India Series Bowler for a 2/10 stake at 6.00 with 888sport
Back him here:
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