Australia will kick off their tour of the West Indies with a five match T20 series starting on Saturday morning! We will be covering every game of the white ball series, starting with Saturday morning’s preview below!
Australia vs West Indies 1st T20 Betting Tips
Gros Islet, Saturday 10th July, 9.30am (AEST)
Match Preview
The tour of West Indies will kick off a stretch of white ball cricket that will culminate in the 2021 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup to be played in the UAE and Oman starting in October. The series will be vital in finalising the squad for the 7th edition of the T20 World Cup, as there is currently a lot of unknowns surrounding the Australian white ball landscape.
Understandably, Pat Cummins and David Warner have been rested for the entire West Indies tour after a busy stretch of cricket, but skipper Aaron Finch will still have a lot of experience to call upon. The likes of Mitch Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Alex Carey and Adam Zampa will be mainstays throughout the tour, but the Australian batting line-up is the area where there will likely be some major experimentation.
Some veteran batsmen have been thrown a life-line ahead of the T20 World Cup in the likes of Matthew Wade, Moises Henriques, Dan Christian, Mitch Marsh, Ashton Turner and Ben McDermott. With Finch, Warner, Smith, Maxwell, and Carey likely taking up five of the spots in the batting line-up, the veterans mentioned above will be using this series as competition to secure the final few spots in the World Cup XI.
If there is one format of cricket where the West Indies can be competitive with Australia, it’s T20. They are 2-time winners of the T20 World Cup and boast some of the most exciting players in the world. Kieron Pollard will lead a star-studded outfit that includes superstars in Nicholas Pooran, Dwayne Bravo, Sheldon Cottrell, Andre Fletcher, Chris Gayle, Shimron Heymter, Jason Holder and Andre Russel.
The West Indies have the capability to field a top five that are all capable of peeling off a hundred in any given international T20 game, which is a really scary prospect given that it really only takes one player to win a game in the shortest format of cricket.
It’s been a while since we have seen any of the Australian players in action, but some of the West Indies stars are fresh off a lengthy period of cricket that saw them play 11 games of limited overs cricket against Sri Lanka and South Africa from March-July.
Because of the sheer amount of cricket they have been playing lately, I love the value of the West Indies in this first game. They have pure match-winners in their team and the Australians will no doubt come into this series pretty rusty, maybe taking a few games to find their feet.
Quick Props
Like the value of Aaron Finch to top the Aussie runscorers here. Will feel a lot of pressure at the top of the order with Smith, Warner and Maxwell out of the line-up. The veteran white ball skipper usually stands up in these moments.
Finch Top AUS Runscorer
$3.60
Mitch Starc’s limited overs credentials speak for themselves at this point. He is a different beast when he has the white ball in his hands and with only four overs to worry about, he will be able to fire them down at full pace. If there’s one knock on some of the WI big hitters, it can be that they are sometimes a little slow getting the bat down on those yorkers, of which Starc is the best in the world at bowling.
Starc Top AUS Wicket Taker
$3.50
Nicholas Pooran made a name for himself amongst Aussie fans in the BBL last season for the Melbourne Stars, plundering 125 runs in just 5 innings at a mammoth strike rate of 169.3. Is can come in at the 10th over and still top the WI runscorers wi the rate that he scores at.
Pooran Top WI Runscorer
$7.00
Jason Holder has been one of the premier all-rounders in world cricket for the better part of a decade now. He was dominant for the Sixers in the BBL last season and was great in both the series against Sri Lanka and South Africa over the past few months.
Holder Top WI Wicket Taker
$5.00
