Champions Trophy Betting – Saturday double-header good for punters

Odds/Lines:
India vs. Pakistan
September 26, 12.30GMT
India (ODDS)
Sri Lanka (ODDS)

Australia v West Indies
September 26, 7.30GMT
Australia (ODDS)
Sri Lanka (ODDS)

India vs. Pakistan

Saturday’s double-header offers polar opposites in the quality of matches – one should be a tight affair while the other should be an absolute drubbing.

In the first match Australia should find the West Indies as nothing more than a speed bump on their way to the semi-finals while India have promised to up the ante in the field against Pakistan.

Both matches should provide plenty of fireworks but the latter will be the match of the day.

India is inching their way towards world domination in the short game and nothing but victory will satiate the cricket hungry nation.

Much like South Africa and Australia, India has a genuine claim to be called the best one-day international team in the world having won their past six series dating back to the five match series in August 2008, against Sri Lanka.

Their warm up for the tournament was a loss to New Zealand but that was a blip on their radar and with the top order they have, nothing but a 300-plus score will suffice.

Captain MS Dhoni is the leading star for India having scored 19 half-centuries in his past 53 innings that also included three big centuries. That statistics reveals a lot about India’s batting line up, firstly when your wicket-keeper batsman needs to score so many runs, those batting above him need to value their wickets a lot more.

That’s bad news when those players are Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Suresh Raina. But that is also the beauty of India, their ability to score runs and a lot of them at a frenetic pace is measured against the propensity to fold.

The two teams haven’t crossed paths since July last year a game in which Pakistan won with consummate ease. India posted 308 yet it wasn’t enough with Younis Khan (123no) and Misbah-ul-Haq (70no) cruising to victory with eight wickets in hand.

Ironically ul-Haq may be forced to sit out this match to allow Khan back into the team after missing the first match with a fractured finger which has miraculously healed in less than a week.

On a Centurion pitch that has been conducive to spin, India’s batsmen will gladly take on the likes of Umar Gul, Mohammad Aamer and Naved-ul-Hasan in place of the slow bowlers.

In return, India’s Harbhajan Singh will play a big role in this game.

Pakistan found their initial match of the tournament against the West Indies a great warm-up for their bowlers who did well to dismiss the Calypso chargers for 133.

But it was their batsmen who floundered and put the team in danger of failing to reach the minute total.

They will need the likes of Imran Nazir, Kamran Akmal and Shoaib Malik to take responsibility for their actions when they have the willow in their hands.

There is a real chance that the inclusion of Khan in the team may bring a false sense of security to the other Pakistan batsmen who must resist the temptation to rest on his laurels and his reputation for getting Pakistan out of trouble.