The Test series between Zimbabwe and South Africa draws to a close this week when the second of the two games take place in Bulawayo as the World Test Championship holders look to complete a clean sweep of the series.
Zimbabwe have offered some good things in their recent Tests with England and South Africa and will be looking to showcase their stuff once again here ahead of the white ball matches, which for them probably carry more significance.
Zimbabwe
I would imagine that Zimbabwe would have been encouraged by their showing in the first match but at the same time they might well have come away from it with a tinge of disappointment too. That comes from the fact that in the first innings they had their opponents 55-4 and 181-6 but they couldn’t force home their advantage and in the end they were unable to claw things back once they allowed South Africa to get away from them.
The other thing which might have disappointed them is the fact that Sean Williams batted brilliantly in the first innings of the opening game but nobody was able to hang around with him for him to take Zimbabwe closer to the South Africa total at the halfway point. That is something that if they get into that situation again here they will be looking to learn from. To be fair to Zimbabwe, they bowled fairly well throughout that opening game which is very much a positive.
South Africa
It probably wasn’t as smooth going as South Africa would have wanted or expected in that opening game but they managed to get the job done in the end to get their first series since winning the World Test Championship title off to the perfect start. We should remember that the Proteas didn’t have much of a warm-up for this series and made a number of changes to the XI which won the title at Lord’s so to get a win as comfortably as they did is definitely a positive.
The Proteas will want more from their top order in this match but the one thing that was apparently obvious going into the first game is that they have a good deal of batting depth in this team. Those batters have had a game in these conditions though and more time to practice in them so it would be a surprise if we don’t see their class come to the fore. If the bowlers can maintain their levels then this should be a case of how much South Africa win by now whether they win.
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Team News
Zimbabwe could be forced into a change for this match with Brian Bennett having sustained a concussion in the opening game. If he is ruled out then the concussion substitute from that first match, Prince Masvaure could keep his place in the side.
South Africa are going to be forced into a change as well because Keshav Maharaj has picked up an injury which has ruled him out of this match. Senuran Muthusamy is the man who is expected to come into an otherwise unchanged side.
Betting
After his century in the opening match, Sean Wiliams now has a Test match average of 46.86 for Zimbabwe and that makes me think that his performance line of 66.5 is automatically a little on the low side but I think there are other reasons to believe that could be the case. The first of them being that he can also add catches to his list of scoring options. He took two of them in the first game and two more here would wipe out almost a third of the target we require from him.
The other reason to like him is that you would imagine the pitch here will slow up as the match goes on. The first game was held here so the square has had a bit of a heavy workload and Williams is one of the better players of spin on the Africa continent, not that South Africa have much top class spin to send down to him. He is decent enough against the seam too, as his average would suggest, and so this line looks well within his range to cover.
Tips
Back S.Williams’ Performance – Over 66.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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