The West Indies Tri-Nations series continues on Sunday when the hosts take on Australia for the first time in the tournament. West Indies will be full of confidence going into this match given their win over South Africa in the tournament opener on Friday. Australia are huge favourites for this tournament so this should be a good match.
West Indies
West Indies held their nerve twice in the match over South Africa. It looked like Rilee Rossouw and AB de Villiers were just beginning to take the match away from them but the bowlers sat in and eventually came through and once that partnership ended a deck of cards type collapse took place.
Then the same thing happened to their own batsmen. After a solid opening partnership wickets began to fall quickly before Kieron Pollard and Darren Bravo got together and used their experience and showed good maturity to get the Windies over the line.
Australia
This will be Australia’s first outing since they were taken apart by Virat Kohli in their final match in the T20 World Cup back in March. In ODI cricket this is their first match since losing a three match series in New Zealand in February.
Australia are the world champions in this format and they’re a proud bunch and even though they have got a hefty workload on the horizon they have taken a full strength squad out to the Caribbean with them and that says to me that they are there to control the series from start to finish.
Team news
You can never quite tell with the West Indies but it is hard to see them making any changes from the side which won so comfortably in the previous match. If they wanted to make a change it could only be to the batting line up realistically but I don’t think that is likely.
Australia have Mitchell Starc back for this series after he missed most of the summer with injury back home. Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Marsh and Steve Smith all pulled out of the IPL but they have all travelled here which suggests they have overcome their injuries.
Providence Stadium
The wicket at Providence played to type in the opening game here. It is slow and sluggish and hard for the batsmen to time their shots on so there is going to be a lot of running involved for the batsmen which in humid conditions isn’t going to be pleasant.
We saw extreme amounts of turn at times in the opening match and with the sun beating down on the square throughout that match I’m only expecting the square to get drier and drier so much more of the same is expected here in terms of the wicket.
Betting
I’m tempted to take the West Indies in this match for the reason that they have at least played on the pitch and will know what they need to do and how to adjust but I respect Australia just enough to leave them, at least until we know how Australia are adjusting to conditions.
As always though there are side markets which interest me and I’m going to focus on the bowlers in this match with the spinners in particular in my sight.
Sunil Narine took six wickets in the opening game of the series and he’ll be licking his lips at the prospect of bowling to an Australian line up who are renowned for struggling against spin. Jason Holder looked to have a really good understanding of when to bowl Narine and what fields to give him and while I wouldn’t expect Narine to take six for again I do think he’ll dominate the batsmen again.
This is the kind of pitch that Narine would love to take around with him but he’ll know that things will get tougher for him in St Kitts and Barbados and so I expect him to take advantage of a final game in Guyana. His wicket line is 1.5 and it is odds against and I strongly fancy a couple of wickets from him here.
I’m also going to target the other leg spinner Adam Zampa who continues to impress on the big stage. Zampa was bamboozling batsmen better than the ones the West Indies will counter him with here in the IPL last month and he has a decent enough record at international level too.
You can tell Zampa is full of confidence from the success he has had in recent times and I think that can translate into the most wickets for Australia here. Mitchell Starc is rated as the main danger but he could be a little rusty.
It might be that Nathan Lyon is the biggest challenger to Zampa but Darren Bravo is the only left hander in this West Indies top order so it might be that the leg spinner has the more success turning the ball away from the multiple right handers and if that is the case Zampa is the one to be with.
Tips
WON – Back S.Narine Over 1.5 Wickets for a 4/10 stake at 2.15 with Coral
WON – Back A.Zampa Top Australia Bowler for a 2/10 stake at 4.50 with Coral
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