Australia’s three match ODI series against South Africa ended in a disappointing 2-1 loss after losing the third game at Blundstone Arena by 40 runs. The two teams will now prepare for a one off T20 match at Carrara Oval in Gold Coast this Saturday night. We take a look at the squads for the T20 match and give our betting tips below.
Australia vs South Africa T20 Betting Tips
Aaron Finch will skipper the Australian T20 side for the one-off match and will be joined in the lineup by a plethora of international and Big Bash stars. Chris Lynn, D’Arcy Short, Ben McDermott, Glenn Maxwell and Alex Carey look set to join Finch in the top six while Marcus Stoinis is likely to play the all-rounder/finisher role at number seven.
Jason Behrendorff, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Billy Stanlake and Andrew Tye will compete for the three fast bowling positions while one of Adam Zampa or Asthon Agar should claim the spinners spot in the side.
The South African side looks a little bit harder to predict. In their recent three T20 series against Zimbabwe which just two of the games were played due to weather, their team changed throughout the two games. Wicketkeeper and captiain respectively, Quinton de Kock and Faf du Plessis, are walk up starters to the team and a brilliant 100 from David Milller in the third ODI should cement his spot in the middle order. The other three spots in the top six look likely to be filled by Aiden Markram, Heinrick Klassen and Reeza Hendricks.
The bowling mix for South Africa will be made up of a combination of Dale Steyn, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Andile Phehlukwayo, Dwaine Pretorius while Imran Tahir and Tabriz Shamsi will compete for the spinners spot.
The important thing for the South Africans is their ability to play an extra bowling all-rounder, as they did in the ODI’s due to wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock being such a tremendous batsman at the top of the order. Their bowling attack will also be much improved on the one that trounced Zimbabwe in their two matches. Of their three frontline quicks, only Lungi Ngidi played in those two matches.
The thing about the Australian batting lineup in limited overs cricket is that they arent built to hang around for a long time, but when just one or two of them can get going, it becomes extremely hard to beat them. Finch, Lynn, Short, McDermott and Maxwell are all capable of winning a game of cricket off their own bat, and the reduced overs to just 20 means that they’ll be able to play their natural games.
For that reason, Australia start as $1.76 favourites for the one off T20 and we like them at that price. When the wicket favoured the South African quicks in the ODI series they were able to keep the Australians to a low score, but with just 20 overs to get through on what is reported to be a low and slow wicket, we think the Australian batting line-up should be able to dominate on Saturday night.
