The heavily delayed ODI series between South Africa and the Netherlands resumes in Benoni on Friday when the two nations meet in the second of the scheduled three games in what is a huge contest for the home side.
South Africa are battling hard to qualify automatically for the World Cup later in the year and need to win this match and the final one which follows to give themselves the best chance of being there. Whatever happens in these matches the Netherlands know they will need to go to the qualifying event.
South Africa
South Africa will go into this match fully expected to win the game and win it big, but there is a reason why they are battling hard to avoid having to go to the qualifying competition for the World Cup. That is because this is a format they just can’t seem to find their best form in at the minute. The balance of the side is the real issue that they have but you wouldn’t think they need the most balanced team to get the job done here.
The big thing for South Africa is that they have picked a strong squad for this series with IPL players delaying their start in that tournament to be able to play here. The other positive for the Proteas is the fact that they go into this series off the back of a period of white ball cricket against West Indies over the last week or so, so there is no need for a match to shake off some rust. That should make them very dangerous here.
Netherlands
This is clearly going to be a tough assignment for the Netherlands and they probably didn’t help their cause in it when they dumped South Africa out of the T20 World Cup towards the back end of last year. That victory should at least provide them with the belief that they can compete on the same pitch as these opponents, albeit that was over 20 overs in Australia and this will be over 50 overs in home conditions of the opposition.
The positive for the Netherlands is that they were also in action recently. They had an ODI series in Zimbabwe ahead of this one and they were competitive in those matches. They have also had a warm up match here in South Africa so they are taking it seriously. You sense if the Netherlands are going to win this then they will need to bowl well with the new ball and set a foundation with the bat and hope someone can have a day out and get them home.
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Team News
South Africa have delayed the departure to the IPL of the likes of Quinton de Kock, Kagiso Radaba, Marco Jansen, David Miller, Aiden Markram and Anrich Nortje and all six could well feature in this match given the need to win.
The Netherlands have no Bas de Leede or Colin Ackermann from what you might class their strongest side. Roelof van der Merwe has had to withdraw from the squad as well so this is a slightly more inexperienced Dutch side.
Betting
I don’t really think we can look too far past a South Africa win in this match but if you have watched cricket over any period of time you will know that South Africa and pressurised matches rarely go together and so anyone thinking of ploughing a wedge on them at a tiny price probably should think again. In truth, it is hard to bet on this match because a lot of the markets and the under/over will be heavily skewed by who bats first. There is also some rain around too.
I will go with one bet though and that comes in the top Netherlands batter market where the 5/1 on Tom Cooper just looks a little too big to me. Having played in Australia throughout his career he will be comfortable on the back foot and we saw in the T20 World Cup match between these two sides that he can handle this attack. There is no Colin Ackermann who top scored in that match and with the exception of Max O’Dowd you sense the top order could be a little out of their depth here. At 5/1 I’ll pay to see if Cooper can deliver the goods.
Tips
Back T.Cooper Top Netherlands Batter for a 2/10 stake at 6.00 with Bet365
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