Pakistan v South Africa ODI Series

By Big Joe

Commences Friday 29th October, 11.00 GMT

After a torrid and controversial few months, Pakistan are back on the international stage with a series of games in all the formats against a strong South African side.

The opening skirmishes in the two T20 games saw South Africa dominate and win both games comfortably. The action now switches to the longer 50 over format and a chance for Pakistan to start afresh and give a better account of themselves.

Pakistan’s biggest concern going into this series will be their batting. They showed a total lack of strategy or planning in the T20 games, and struggled both times to post a competitive score. The positive for them was that even defending low scores, the Pakistan bowling looked to be in good nick and over this longer format, that balanced bowling attack will be capable of restricting the South Africans.

Pakistan’s batting will be boosted by the return of Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousef. These two add much needed experience and class to a fragile batting lineup and with the big hitting Afridi and Razaak to follow, I would expect the Pakistani batting to improve dramatically, especially on these pitches that will be more familiar to them then the South Africans.

South Africa though will be full of confidence. They are proving to be a hard team to beat in all formats and they too will be boosted by the probable return to the batting lineup of Kallis and Amla. Its not clear yet if Steyn will be fit enough to take part, if he does not, then that will be a big blow to the South Africans and would mean that Pakistan having the edge in the bowling department.

The markets make South Africa extremely short priced favourites for this series. They could justify those odds, however I feel there is no value at all on them at these prices. Pakistan on their day can beat any team in any format. Even through their controversial period of late they recorded impressive wins at big prices against England and Australia. I believe that on these pitches in the desert, the value lies in opposing South Africa for this series.

My suggested bets therefore are:

In The Series Outright Market:

BACK Pakistan to win for 5 points @ 4.5 at Ladbrokes, Betfair

In The Series correct Score Market:

BACK Pakistan  to win 5-0 for 1 point @ 101.0 at Ladbrokes, Bet365

BACK Pakistan to win 4-1 for 1 point @ 17.0 Ladbrokes, Bet365

BACK Pakistan to win 3-2 for 2 points @6.0 at Ladbrokes

Big Joe