The South African international summer begins on Sunday and a busy period of games gets going with the first of three ODIs from the relatively unused suburb of Kimberley who will enjoy hosting the national team.
The two sides will battle it out across the ODI and T20 format in the next couple of weeks with the focus on the World Cup starting for South Africa while Zimbabwe will be looking to make the most of the experience of taking on a top level side again.
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South Africa
The last time we saw South Africa in ODI cricket they were beating a pretty abject Sri Lanka side and a repeat of their performances in the first three matches of that series should see them absolutely fine here. With spots in the World Cup up for grabs it is important that the players who are going into battle for the Proteas deliver the goods here so they don’t lack things to play for.
You would expect South Africa to find the going pretty easy in these three matches so it might be that they need to set themselves challenges within the overall challenge to get the best out of themselves. They will be keen to start the summer with a big performance as it is a busy one so early confidence could be crucial.
Zimbabwe
The Zimbabweans need something big to happen for them soon after a disappointing year so far. They missed out on the World Cup next summer by failing to come through the qualifying tournament which was a major blow and they go into this series off the back of a disappointing one against Pakistan last time out.
Zimbabwe are starting to get their players back after a wage dispute so that should help them. I think they will be competitive with the bat in this series so how well they fare could well come down to their bowling efforts. You would have to suggest they look quite light with the ball to be competitive at this level.
Team News
South Africa are without a host of players for this series. Faf du Plessis and Hashim Amla are both injured while David Miller and Quinton de Kock have been rested. Dale Steyn will play a limited overs home ODI for the first time in a while.
Zimbabwe will be able to welcome back senior players in the likes of Brendan Taylor, Craig Ervine and Sean Williams but the absence of Sikandar Raza will be felt. Graeme Cremer is out too and he’ll be a big loss.
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Betting
I’ll ease my way into the series here and assess both sides and how everything is looking before getting stuck in more over the course of the last two ODIs but as always there is one bet that I think is worth going at which comes in the total runs market.
The line is 500.5 but this is a good ground for batting and I expect the batting of the Zimbabweans to be their stronger suit. If South Africa were to bat first then I would expect them to go well past 300 against this Zimbabwe attack but there is no reason why the minnows can’t go past 250 with their batting depth so I’ll take the over on the runs line.
Tips
Back Over 500.5 runs for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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