Match News and Current Form
Australia set a new national record of nine consecutive T20I victories when they followed up clean sweep wins over Pakistan (3-0 home) and the West Indies (5-0 away) with a somewhat scrappy win in Darwin, which remains the host venue for this Tuesday night encounter before the series moves to Cairns.
Tim David’s eighth 50+ score in international T20s overshadowed a very helpful 13-ball 35 from Cameron Green, who as a side note comfortably cleared his 18.5 run threshold as we predicted in our previous preview. Australia’s bowling attack remains so formidable that the usually economical Nathan Ellis could afford a bad night (0-44) after his four teammates combined for nine wickets.
South Africa head coach Shukri Conrad dropped the in-form veteran Reeza Hendricks to establish wicketkeeper Ryan Rickelton as the Proteas’ new Quinton de Kock and Rickelton repaid the faith with 71 runs, albeit at a scoring rate (7.75rpo) that was far too slow for the task at hand.
That was in part because he was trying to build a partnership after seeing three batting partners dismissed during the powerplay, but none of his middle order teammates were able to pick up the slack during the second half of the innings. It was South Africa’s sixth consecutive loss against any of the four countries currently above them in the T20I rankings and a big improvement will be needed here.
Head-to-Head History
Australia are now on a six-game winning streak in all T20Is against South Africa, taking their dominant record over the Proteas to 18-8. They have also won the last four H2Hs in which they batted first.
Hot Stats and Streaks
Australia won nine of their last ten T20Is on home soil
Only four of Australia’s last 19 opening partnerships in home T20Is got beyond 20 runs
Seven of South Africa’s last nine opening partnerships were worth fewer than 15 runs
Aiden Markram scored 20 or less in four of his five T20I innings in Australia
Key Players to Watch and Missing Players
Ben Dwarshuis continues to quietly go about his work in an effective manner and now averages two wickets per game in this format with a 63% rate of taking 2+ wickets. 19-year-old Kwena Maphaka bowled very intelligently in the first T20I and thoroughly deserved his four-wicket haul. It was just the third time in nine games he took 2+ scalps, so let’s see if he can keep it going.
There were no reported injuries out of either squad, but the 48-hour turnaround could mean some rotation.
Betting Analysis
Travis Head over 24.5 runs looks a good play here on the basis that he rarely puts two bad innings together. Only once in his last 20 T20Is did he score under 25 in back-to-back games, illustrating how quickly he learns from his mistakes.