Newlands, Cape Town is the venue for the second One Day International between South Africa and Pakistan, the game takes place on Thursday and Pakistan are 1-0 up with two to play
The Proteas won last week's T20 series 2-0 but Pakistan drew first blood in this 3 match ODI series with a thrilling 3 wicket win at Paarl on Tuesday.
South Africa won the toss and opted to bat at Boland Park and they started well with de Zorzi (33) and Rickleton (36) putting on 70 for the first stick in just less than 10 overs. Pakistan fought back and 70/1 quickly became 88/4 but Klaasen top scored with 86 and the innings finished on 239/9. Salman Agha returned figures of 4/32 off 8 overs.
Pakistan eventually completed the chase with just 3 balls to spare, turning things around after falling well behind the asking rate at 60/4 into the 20th over. Opening bat Saim Ayub hit 109 and Salman Agha was 82 not out at the death. Baartman and Rabada both took 2 wickets, Pakistan hit 5 sixes to the Proteas 2 and after starring with bat and ball Salman Agha was Man of the Match.
After this the ODI series concludes at The Wanderers on Sunday and the first of 2 test matches starts at Centurion on Boxing Day.
This was how the teams lined up at Paarl in the first ODI
South Africa: Tony de Zorzi, Ryan Rickelton, Rassie van der Dussen, Aiden Markram (c), Tristan Stubbs, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Marco Jansen, Andile Phehlukwayo, Kagiso Rabada, Ottneil Baartman, Tabraiz Shamsi
Pakistan: Saim Ayub, Abdullah Shafique, Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan (c & wk), Kamran Ghulam, Salman Agha, Irfan Khan, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf, Abrar Ahmed
South Africa Recent Form
In October the Proteas beat Ireland 2-1 in a series staged in the UAE. That came on a the back of a 2-1 defeat to Afghanistan in Sharjah a month earlier. Last December India came to SA and beat the Proteas 2-1.
Pakistan Recent Form
Pakistan's only ODI action in 2024 came last month. They recovered from losing the opening match of a 3 game series in Zimbabwe to win 2-1. It was the same story in Australia when they lost the first match by 2 wickets but bounced back with wide margin wins (9 wickets and 8 wickets) to claim the series 2-1.
Head to Head
Overall the teams have met 84 times in this format with South Africa winning 52 to Pakistan's 31 and there has been 1 no result
The Venue, Newlands, Cape Town
The Proteas have played 8 ODI's at this venue over the course of the last decade, winning 7 and losing 1
The most recent ODI here came back in January 2022 and South Africa (287) beat India (283) by 4 runs.
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The Betting
At the time of writing South Africa are 6/10 to win with BetXchange and Pakistan can be backed at 14/10
South Africa are 17/20 to hit the most sixes, Pakistan are 13/10 and a tie is 6/1
Prices subject to change
The Verdict
We were in the winners box with Saim Ayub as top run scorer for Pakistan on Tuesday although the total match sixes pick fell way short.
The match result betting for this match is very similar to Tuesday when the teams looked pretty evenly matched so Pakistan could be the value here although I'm, looking elsewhere for a betting interest.
I'm siding with Shaheen Afridi to be the top bowler in the match (from both sides). He is not playing the test matches and will be keen to make his mark in the final 2 ODI's. I'm also sticking with “overs” in the total sixes market at a couple of maximums lower than it was on Tuesday.
Bet: Top Bowler in Match, Shaheen Afridi at 43/10 with BetXchange
Total match sixes, over 9.5 at 17/20 with BetXchange
