Australia were fantastic in the two T20 series in India, winning both games in thrilling fashion! The tour of India continues this weekend as the five match ODI series gets underway! We take a look at the series and give our betting tips below!
India vs Australia ODI Series Betting Tips
Australia
It will be a super important ODI series for the Australians, who have just these five games and another five game series in Pakistan to finalise their preparations for the 2019 ICC World Cup.
The two match series win over India in the T20 should give them plenty of confidence going into the series, with many of the players from the T20 squad set to take part in the ODI series.
Glenn Maxwell played a starring role in the T20 series, compiling a brilliant hundred in game two to drag the Australians over the line. Maxwell, along with Alex Carey, Aaron Finch, Shaun Marsh and Usman Khawaja should claim five of the six permanent batting spots for game one. The remaining batting position will likely be fought for between Peter Handscomb, Ashton Turner and D’Arcy Short.
Marcus Stoinis opened in the T20 matches but will likely slide down to number seven in the one dayers, providing valuable lower order runs alongside Pat Cummins and Nathan Coulter-Nile. White ball specialist spinner Adam Zampa will likely get the first crack over Test spinner Nathan Lyon while Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson and Jason Behrendorff will fight it out for the remaining pace bowling position.
All in all, it looks to be a fairly strong Australian ODI squad, however, the issues that some of the top order had against the Indians over the summer could come back to haunt them here. Aaron Finch never really looked at home against the Indian pace attack nor did Usman Khawaja or Peter Handscomb.
Shaun Marsh top AUS batsman
$4.50
India
The Indians have a much more settled line-up ahead of the World Cup and will use this five game series as the last chance to fine tune the squad. These ODI matches will be the last the play before the tournament, as the 2019 IPL season gets underway in late March and will take up the majority of the Indian schedule until the start of the World Cup.
Virat Kohli will lead an all-star batting line-up that will likely consist of ODI mainstays Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Lokesh Rahul, Risbah Pant and MS Dhoni.
The bowling line-up will be led by the No.1 ODI bowler in the world, Jasprit Bumrah, who terrorised the Australians over the summer while spinner Kuldeep Yadav jumped to No.4 on the ODI bowler rankings with a fantastic performance in Australia.
Kohli top IND batsman
$2.37
Tips
The Australians need to get some confidence back in their ODI line-up before the World cup begins. Australia have lost their last six ODI series in a row and as a result, have slipped all the way to sixth on the ICC ODI rankings.
Finding a balance between genuine one day batsmen and big hitters seems to be the problem for the Aussies, as they have tried an array of Big Bash League stars at the top of the order when probably should have been looking more at the JLT One Day Cup for form players.
Inserting the likes of Usman Khawaja and Shaun Marsh back into the batting line-up should give some stability after failed experiments with BBL stars like Ben McDermott and Chris Lynn and the form of Glenn Maxwell at the moment is on another level.
With that being said, its still the Indians series to lose. They play their own conditions extremely well, especially in the ODI format, regularly playing two world class spinners in Yadav and Ravi Jadeja to suit the conditions. The Indians have only lost one of their last 14 ODI series, which was against the No.1 ranked ODI team, England, away from home in 2018. They haven’t lost a ODI series at home since the 2015/16 season. They currently possess three of the top 10 ranked ODI batsmen in the world and that’s not including MS Dhoni, who terrorised the Australians in white ball cricket over the Aussie summer.
The Aussies are definitely capable of snatching one or two games here but we think it will be tough to stop the likes of Kohli, Sharma and Dhoni on five separate occasions. Back the home team to win.
