All Cricket Tips w/c 9th March

Plenty of action in our local One Day Cup throughout the week. Internationally Bangladesh v Pakistan ODI's start Wednesday, Afghan v Sri Lanka T20's start Friday and New Zealand v South Africa T20's get underway on Sunday.

All this week's cricket tips, any competition, are most welcome here 

With the T20 World Cup done and dusted, focus moves to preparation for the 2027 ODI World Cup to be held in South Africa. The first match in this cycle sees Bangladesh take on Pakistan at the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur.

Pakistan arrive in Mirpur with six uncapped players in their squad, four of them top-order batsmen, primarily in a bid to build some depth and address their poor performance with the bat at the recently concluded T20 World Cup. Among them is opener and tournament top scorer at the WC, Sahibzada Farhan. 

Bangladesh have selected their strongest available squad for this series with the focus being on out of form opener Liton Das dropping down to 5 in the batting order. They have plenty of quality spin options in Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Taiful Islam and Rishad Hossein with opening batsman Siaf Hassan a good and solid option as 6th bowler. 

The pitch at Shere Bangla took a lot of turn in the recent series between Bangladesh and West Indies and this is where my bets will be focused. Games at this ground have not been very high scoring in general, the highest 1st innings score in the first ODI of the series at this ground is 256/7 by Bangladesh v Sri Lanka in 2021. Pakistan under 256.5 innings runs 87/100 @ WSB

As mentioned, this pitch is known as a spin-friendly pitch, thus my other two bets will rely on this. Rishad Hossein boasts an excellent record at Shere Bangla where he took 6/35 against the Windies in October. He has also scored his highest first class score of 99 at this ground and was in the wickets here in the recently concluded Bangladesh T20 Cup.

Rishad Hossein Top Match Bowler 8/1 @ BetXchange
Rishad Hossein Player of the Match 37/2 @ BetXchange. (11/1 at other places)

Main bet: Bangladesh win 13/10 @ WSB. Pakistan trying out a few new combinations up front and not nearly as covered in the spin department with Abrar being their only main spinner this series. Reckon the bookies got this price wrong.

Well well, both teams going with 3 pacers:

Bangladesh: 1 Saif Hassan, 2 Tanzid Hasan, 3 Towhid Hridoy, 4 Najmul Hossain Shanto, 5 Litton Das (wk), 6 Afif Hossain, 7 Mehidy Hasan Miraz (c), 8 Rishad Hossain, 9 Taskin Ahmed, 10 Nahid Rana, 11 Mustafizur Rahman

Pakistan: 1 Sahibzada Farhan, 2 Maaz Sadaqat, 3 Shamyl Hussain, 4 Mohammad Rizwan (wk), 5 Salman Agha, 6 Hussain Talat, 7 Abdul Samad, 8 Faheem Ashraf, 9 Shaheen Shah Afridi (c), 10 Mohammad Wasim, 11 Abrar Ahmed

The match can be live streamed via Sports TV on Youtube

today, 20 years ago, it was THAT game at the Wanderers
Wish I could watch it again

Bangladesh v Pakistan 2nd ODI

The Tigers got their series off to a flyer with an absolute drubbing of Pakistan. The Pakistan batsmen had no answer for the raw pace of Nahid Rana with Shamyl Hussain and Rizwan in particular having no idea where the ball or their feet was. A fast pitch was prepared in contrary to the normally spin friendly pitches at the Shere Bangla National Stadium.

Reckon we can expect a similar fast pitch for this match. There is a chance of showers towards the later part of the first innings, so the team winning the toss will surely bowl first. Pokerbet have set the 1st Innings score at 240.5, a line I feel is too much for Pakistan but reachable for Bangladesh. As mentioned the Pakistan batsman had no answer for Rana with Taskin Ahmed also beating the edge quite a few times. Tanzid Hasan has been in great form of late and made light work of the chase on Wednesday. Should Bangladesh bat first and he gets another start, 240 is well within reach.

My bets:
Main bet: Bangladesh win 1/1 at WSB. Bookies still generous. 
Match Top Batsman: Tanzid Hasan 9/1 @ WSB
Tanzid Hasan to score a 50 3/1 @ WSB
Match Top Wicket Taker: Taskin Ahmed 7/1 @ WSB
Player of the Match: Taskin Ahmed 20/1 @ WSB

The match can be live streamed on Sports TV Youtube channel. 
 

Quick heads up on the betting for NZ v South Africa 1st T20, Sunday morning as this one passed my by for previewing,

Many changes from T20 WC squads, 

South Africa Squad: Tony de Zorzi, Jason Smith, Jordan Hermann, George Linde, Wiaan Mulder, Connor Esterhuizen(w), Prenelan Subrayen, Dian Forrester, Gerald Coetzee, Ottneil Baartman, Keshav Maharaj(c), Lutho Sipamla, Rubin Hermann, Andile Simelane, Nqobani Mokoena

New Zealand Squad: Devon Conway(w), Tim Robinson, Tom Latham, James Neesham, Josh Clarkson, Mitchell Santner(c), Bevon Jacobs, Nathan Smith, Kyle Jamieson, Lockie Ferguson, Ish Sodhi, Cole McConchie, Dane Cleaver, Nick Kelly, Ben Sears, Katene D Clarke, Jayden Lennox, Zakary Foulkes

NZ 5/10 and Proteas 14/10 to win, 

Total 1st innings runs line in the 160's, total sixes line over / under 13.5. 

Bay Oval would seem to be a bat first ground on stats

NZ v SA 1st T20I

Match Top Batsman: Bevon Jacobs 11/1 
NZ Top Bowler: Cole McConchie 4/1
SA Top Bowler: George Linde 15/4 all @ Pokerbet