The second match of the scheduled three at the T20 World Cup on Friday sees the tournament heading back to St Vincent for the second game on the island when Nepal go up against South Africa in Group D.
South Africa have already qualified for the next stage and end their initial group phase here. Nepal will be looking to win to keep their hopes alive and set up a winner takes all clash with Bangladesh in the last game.
Nepal
This was going to be a tough ask for Nepal regardless of what had gone before in the tournament but when you consider that they have only been able to play one match in the opening two weeks of it after their second one was washed out just makes the size of the task all the harder here. The fact that they have to win it to stay alive in the competition only adds to the issues that they have but the positive is that they know their fate and can approach this one with clear minds.
If Nepal are going to give themselves a chance of winning this match then they need to come out and throw the bat a bit. If they just dig in and look to ride out the storm then there are going to be enough balls with their name on it that they’ll be out. Even if it goes wrong and they are bowled out for 60 or so it would be the right way to go about it as they might get skittled anyway. They at least go up against a batting unit that might need to adjust after three games on the minefield of New York.
South Africa
Although they are through to the next stage of the competition, this feels like a big match for South Africa. They have won their three matches but they haven’t really been convincing in them, especially with the bat in hand, and now they have one more chance on what looks to be a much better wicket to get some form into their batters ahead of what you would call the serious part of the tournament. If they fail here you would worry for South Africa.
South Africa are bowling well on the face of it and they probably aren’t going to have much of a test with the ball here given that Nepal won’t have faced anything like the pace they are going to get hit with here too often but you wonder how well they are bowling and just how much they exploited favourable conditions in New York. A convincing showing here would certainly make those watching them feel much better about their credentials.
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Team News
Nepal have Sandeep Lamichhane available for the first time in this tournament after he was ineligible for the USA leg of their campaign as he couldn’t get a visa. He is likely to come into the side for Sagar Dhakal in a like for like switch.
There was a chance for South Africa to rest some players ahead of the super eights but their coach has suggested that will not happen and that his side will go again in a bid to get adjusted to Caribbean conditions.
Betting
These matches are never the easiest to bet on and even more so when we have had no real chance to get any sort of a gauge on how Nepal are going and that is further the case when you consider that the Nepalese have their star player available for the first time. This is only the second match on this ground as well which complicates things even more so I’m not going to part with too much of my hard earned cash but one bet that I do like comes in the player performance markets.
That is the South Africa captain Aiden Markram who has a performance line of 25.5. Usually I would be trying to state why this is low with statistics but we can’t really because he has had an ordinary World Cup so far but I think he’ll be determined to find some form in this match ahead of the latter stages of the event and that makes me comfortable that he’ll cover this. He hasn’t bowled in the tournament so far, although it might be that he gets an over or two here in case he is needed in the latter stages, so it may well be that we’re looking for him to cover this via runs but he took four catches in the last game and one in each of the first two games so it might be that we don’t need him to get 26 runs after all. If we do I’m still happy he covered this line on a much better batting deck.
Tips
Back A.Markram’s Performance – Over 25.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
Back him here:
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