South Africa finish their Caribbean tour on Saturday with a deciding T20 in their five match series against West Indies in a contest which will act as the perfect preparation for the upcoming World T20 in the UAE.
Both these sides have shown a competitive spirit to this series even though getting everything in place for that tournament in a few months remains the overall priority. Having come this far both teams will be eager to seal the series win.
West Indies
You have to give a lot of credit to West Indies for their win to level the series in the fourth game. It is never easy playing under pressure and while their batting innings didn’t always go to plan, they finished with their trademark flourish and took the game away from South Africa. They have now shown in this series that they can win when chasing and when setting a score and you can’t overstate how important that is for the mentality of a team.
I think we are now at the stage in this series where if West Indies play their best cricket they are likely to win whereas if they are below their best they are probably going to be cannon fodder for most teams including this South Africa one. One thing West Indies have to address at some point is their ability in the field. They have a lot of aging bodies and might be hiding one or two too many for the liking of most.
South Africa
The South Africans may well have come away from that previous match disappointed as for 15 overs or so when they had the ball in hand everything was going smoothly but the last five overs got away from them with some very ordinary death bowling, albeit against fearsomely scary batsmen, really undoing the great work of the two spinners. That gives them an area where they can improve going into this final match which isn’t always a bad thing.
We were waiting for the weakness of this South Africa side to come out and haunt them and that is exactly what happened in the last game. There just isn’t enough depth to their batting at this level and while their bowlers got them out of the mess early on in the series, they couldn’t keep up their intensity and when they needed their batsmen to get them out of a hole they just didn’t have enough to do so. That batting depth really does need sorting.
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Team News
Fabian Allen picked up a shoulder injury in the field on Thursday and it is unlikely that has recovered in less than 48 hours so Akeal Hosein could come in or they could go back to Kevin Sinclair who started the series.
Anrich Nortje suffered a nasty blow to the knee in the previous game so it remains to see whether he will be risked for this match. Beuran Hendricks would offer something different if Nortje is not good to go here.
Betting
I took under 40.5 boundaries in the previous match in this series and although we had a West Indies batting blitz that we hadn’t had in the earlier matches, there still were not enough boundaries to cover the line and I’m siding with the same bet here, albeit one less on the line. That means under 39.5 boundaries is good for us. There were exactly 39 in that last game but that included a fast start and a crazy end for West Indies.
The pitches are only going to tire more with all the matches that are getting played on them so batting isn’t going to be easy. The outfield isn’t the best here which will keep the boundary count slightly lower than it normally would be. Then there is the pressure of a deciding match here as well which is another thing that might restrict the boundary hitting, especially if the chasing team struggles under scoreboard pressure. There is more than enough to suggest that under 39.5 boundaries is the way to go here.
Tips
Back Under 39.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
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