India vs South Africa ODI Series

By Nishant Joshi

After a 1-1 drawn test series ending in dramatic fashion, South Africa conclude their tour of India with a three-match ODI series.

Both sides are missing key players, which will surely undermine the aura behind this series. South Africa will be without influential captain Graeme Smith, but India will be without Zaheer Khan, Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh. Harbhajan Singh will be missing for the first two games in order to attend his sister's wedding.

Hashim Amla will stay on with the ODI squad after a remarkably successful test series, with Loots Bosman and Herschelle Gibbs also in contention for a starting berth at the top of the order. Generally speaking, India are fairly formidable at home in all forms of the game, but South Africa showed during the tests that they have more than enough in their locker to catch the hosts cold.

Here's how I expect the teams to line up:

South Africa: 1 Herschelle Gibbs, 2 Hashim Amla, 3 AB de Villiers, 4 Jacques Kallis (capt), 5 JP Duminy, 6 Mark Boucher (wk), 7 Albie Morkel, 8 Roelof van der Merwe, 9 Johan Botha, 10 Morne Morkel, 11 Dale Steyn

India: 1 Virender Sehwag, 2 Sachin Tendulkar, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 MS Dhoni (wk/capt), 5 Suresh Raina, 6 Dinesh Karthik, 7 Yusuf Pathan, 8 Praveen Kumar, 9 Amit Mishra, 10 Ashish Nehra, 11 S Sreesanth

South Africa look vulnerable at the top, with both Gibbs and Amla struggling in the ODI arena in the last year. JP Duminy's form is beginning to become a huge concern after a redundant past six months, for the man touted as the world's next great batsman less than a year ago. Their lower order is especially strong, with Boucher, Albie Morkel, van der Merwe and Botha.

On the other hand, India's lower order looks fairly brittle, with Raina, Karthik and Pathan all fighting for their places. They will be relying heavily on Sehwag and Tendulkar to get them off to a good start in each match. I maintain that Virat Kohli is a by-product of misplaced favouritism, and all of his performances in his career to date have come in 'soft' situations, finishing matches against weakened opposition before promptly being hailed by commentators as 'something special' in each case. Quite frankly, he is the most overrated cricketer in the world right now, and the likes of Steyn and Morkel should bring him down to earth with a bang, particularly if there's even a hint of swing around.

Somewhat surprisingly, Jacques Kallis has been chosen to replace Graeme Smith as captain, even though Johan Botha has shown himself to be a shrewd thinker when given the chance. Both sides now have , Sodecent sized holes in their line-ups, and as such it's quite hard to call the series outright. All three matches will be day/night affairs and as such, the variance due to factors such as dew and swing will be emphasised. Over a five match series, I'd be happy to back India at prices of about 1.8 to win the series, but calling the toss at the beginning of the match will have too much influence for us to get involved at these prices. Likewise, South Africa to win the series at 2.1 doesn't represent significant value, if any.

The only bet that appeals to me is in the side markets. Firstly, Dale Steyn looks a nice bet at 4.0 to be top bowler for South Africa. He is likely to enjoy decent swing conditions throughout the series, and he is in prime form after taking 10-fer in the first test.

NJ's Bets:

Dale Steyn to be top SA wicket-taker - 2.5pts @ 4.0 (William Hill)

Nishant Joshi