The third and final match in the T20 World Cup on Tuesday takes us back to Antigua where Group B is back in the spotlight when Australia go about booking their place in the Super Eights when they take on the banana skin of Namibia.
Namibia already have a win to their name in this tournament and they will know that if they can win this match they will set up a huge clash with England in their last game. Australia win here and their final match against Scotland becomes a dead rubber.
Australia
You wouldn’t say Australia were brilliant in their opening match of this tournament but like all good sides do in these global events they came on for the run and moved through the gears a lot more in their second game against England. They will have known that the contest was the one which would break the back of this section and now they have two matches left needing to win one of them to make it through to the second stage of the competition.
You would imagine they will want to get it done here and then they have the chance of giving one or two bowlers a rest before the heavy games come along later in the tournament and a repeat of their showing against England, where they flew out of the blocks with the bat and never really let their opponents back in at any stage. Their batting now looks in good touch and their bowling stacks up to anything in the competition so the 2021 winners are in decent shape.
Namibia
Namibia had two solid campaigns in the last two T20 World Cup tournaments and qualified for this one without losing a match but the rising expectations upon them might just be going against them a little now that they are here again. They beat Oman in their opening game of the competition but they needed a super over to do it and weren’t really that impressive. They were then shackled by Scotland in a loss which could end up being damaging to their hopes of progression.
Namibia haven’t really got going with the bat in this tournament. Even though they had a comfortable looking run chase they never really got on top of it and in the end snuck into a super over, which to be fair they dominated. They couldn’t break free against Scotland either so their batting is going to need to make significant improvements if they are going to win this. For 35 overs of this tournament their bowling has gone well but it gets its biggest test here.
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Team News
Australia named what could be considered their strongest XI against England and everyone contributed to the victory so there is no reason for them to change things but Mitchell Starc had cramp in the first one so he might sit out at some point with Nathan Ellis waiting for another go.
Namibia need to do something about their batting. Whether that is a change in the order or a personnel switch remains to be seen. The former could see JJ Smit coming in much earlier while the latter could Dylan Leicher into the side.
Betting
I don’t expect Namibia to win this match but there is enough about them for them to stay within the range of a rather generous handicap. The Africans are getting a 7.5 wicket or 74.5 run head start so even were Australia to bat first and cut loose and put another 200+ score on the board Namibia are only going to have to score within the 130-140 range to cover that and they bat deep enough for that to happen even if they aren’t going to win the game.
The other way around and they are looking for three wickets so if they only put up a score in that 130-140 range then we know that the top three of Australia are going to play their shots and there is some quality with the new ball for the Namibians. They have shown they can take care of full member nations in this tournament when they demolished Sri Lanka in the last World Cup and while I don’t think they will win this one, I do see them being more competitive than this handicap line would expect them to be.
Tips
Back Namibia (+7.5wickets/74.5runs) to beat Australia for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
