Another new era for South Africa begins on Tuesday when their Test team open up a two-match series against West Indies at Centurion, with both sides looking to secure a share of the spoils at the first time of asking.
These two teams are both out of the running for the World Test Championship but there will be an intention to improve their red ball form ahead of future events and this is a chance for the pair of them to begin to do that.
South Africa
This is the first time we will see South Africa in red ball cricket since they were pretty convincingly beaten in Australia over Christmas. That was disappointing in so many ways but the main reason was because there wasn’t really a time where you thought South Africa were competitive in the series. That is the very least that they expect to be and while Australia are a good side, South Africa shouldn’t have been beaten as tamely as they were.
The big problem South Africa have had in this format, probably for a year or so really, has been a distinct lack of runs. They just can’t seem to score at the top of the order and because they are searching for the world class all-rounder that the best teams in world cricket have, they have too long a tail to get them out of trouble. Their bowling attack usually keeps them competitive but they need to find a functioning top six which regularly churns out runs.
West Indies
West Indies have been in a funk in red ball cricket for far too long. They still have the occasional good day which can lead to wins but they are nothing like the force they once were. West Indies have also been to Australia in recent times and been well beaten but there were occasions in that series where they looked a lot better than South Africa did. West Indies went to Zimbabwe recently and came out on top.
One area where West Indies have the edge on South Africa is that they have a world class all-rounder in their ranks so there should never be an issue with the balance of the side. The problem comes in the quality of it and in the batting department in particular. West Indies are devoid of some big name players for this format of the game but there is usually enough in them with the ball if they can find the required number of runs.
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Team News
South Africa could give a debut to Gerald Coetzee in this match. It would appear that Aiden Markram is going to go up and open the batting which will allow Keegan Petersen to return and Heinrich Klaasen to come into the middle order.
West Indies will need to decide on which spinner to go in with. Roston Chase offers a much stronger batting option but Gudakesh Motie took 13 wickets in his last match. West Indies have enough batting depth should they choose him.
Betting
I’m not going to go too mad on this match although I’m always encouraged when the touring side have a warm up match which West Indies have done. That shows they are here to compete and be competitive in this series at the very least. I still expect South Africa to have too much for them but I’m in no rush to back them with the way they have been batting recently so I’ll head to the player markets for a bet.
The player I like is Heinrich Klaasen who I’m expecting to get plenty of catches behind the stumps and he is good enough to score well with the bat here. He had a very good SA20 tournament recently and has shown in ODI cricket that he is more than good enough to succeed at international level. He has a performance line of 93.5 which looks quite low for a man of his talents. If he snatches four or five catches he would only need 50 or so runs to cover this and he is more than good enough to achieve that.
Tips
Back H.Klaasen’s Performance – Over 93.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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