The first ODI cricket of the month begins on Friday when the West Indies host Australia and South Africa in a tri-series which should provide plenty of interest and excellent action over the month. The entire series is live on Sky Sports which gives us plenty to go at.
The Format
Each team plays the other two three times in the round robin stage with each set of matches being played at a different venue. Guyana host the first three games before the series moves on to St Kitts and ends in Barbados with the last three group matches and the final between the top two after the round robin stage. All matches are over 50 overs and all games are day-night matches.
West Indies
This is the first time the West Indies have played ODIs in seven months. You would think having recently won the World T20 that West Indies will be brimming with confidence and be the team to beat but that isn’t how this current West Indies set up works.
Rather than picking the men who won that world title in fine style they have created another internal ruck by leaving out those who didn’t play the domestic 50 over competition which means the likes of Chris Gayle, Darren Sammy, Andre Russell and Dwayne Bravo are nowhere to be seen here.
Australia
The world champions have named a strong squad for this series with Mitchell Starc returning and the likes of Usman Khawaja, Adam Zampa and Travis Head rewarded for good performances in the Big Bash for their respective franchises.
Australia haven’t played ODI cricket since February when they were beaten in New Zealand so they will have a bit of a point to prove in what is a pretty high profile series here. These aren’t natural conditions to Australia so it will be interesting to see how they go.
South Africa
This will be South Africa’s first ODI series since they beat England at home back in February and like Australia it will be interesting to see how they go in these conditions. I think they are better equipped for the slower conditions and it is interesting that they have left Dale Steyn at home, or rather in Glamorgan, for this series.
AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis, Morne Morkel, Imran Tahir and Quinton de Kock are all in the squad for this series so there are no signs that the Proteas aren’t taking this series which is excellent from a neutrals point of view.
Betting
In truth I can’t get a feel for the outright market at the minute. Maybe after the first round of matches something will come from it but right now I feel it is a market to leave alone.
There is one bet I like going into the series though and that is in the Australian Top Series Batsman market where I’m keen on David Warner continuing his fine form. Warner was in excellent form with the bat in the IPL and he will be full of confidence after leading his side to the title out there.
Warner’s immediate danger in the betting market at least is Steve Smith who left the IPL with injury and we don’t know exactly how he is so that is a positive. We don’t know whether Aaron Finch or Usman Khawaja will partner Warner at the top of the innings, it might be that they share the role and if they do you would think that would take them both out of the picture and with the way the wickets are likely to get harder to bat on when the new ball has been seen off I don’t see where Warner doesn’t top score over what should be seven matches for Australia.
At 5/2 I think the opening batsman looks a good thing to be the top batsman for Australia in this tournament.
Tips
Back D.Warner Top Australia Tournament Batsman for a 3/10 stake at 3.50 with Bet365
Back him here:
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