Australia v England First ODI: Prediction & 3 Bets To Take

Australia take on the newly crowned T20 champions England in the at the Adelaide Oval tomorrow morning. This series comes four days after England won the T20 World Cup which is a bit puzzling considering that this is a non-Super League series.

Despite that, both teams will be looking to build towards next year’s World Cup and Lwanele Poswayo has prepared his 3 bets to take for the first ODI of the series.

Travis Head

The Adelaide Oval is Travis Head’s home ground and he has played so many matches there for the Adelaide Strikers in the Big Bash league. He will most likely open the batting with David Warner after Aaron Finch’s retirement. Head also has a good record against England in ODIs, scoring 395 runs at an average of 43.88 in 10 matches. The last time these two teams played at this venue, the lefthanded batsman scored 96 runs.

He also doesn’t have the hangover from Australia’s poor World Cup campaign and is the best bet to be the Aussie’s top batsman in the match.

Highest Individual Score

I expect this to be a relatively low-scoring game with both teams coming from a T20 World Cup and having to adjust to a different format. I’m going to go for the unders for this first ODI.

Fall Of 1st Wicket

I’m going to go for the under again as four of Australia’s last five ODI opening partnerships involving Travis Head were worth fewer than 15 runs. I’m not sure who’s going to open the batting with the out-of-form Jason Roy for England but I do expect him to lose his wicket early mainly because of his poor record against Australia’s skipper Pat Cummins and Jos Hazlewood.

Hazlewood has dismissed Roy twice from five ODI duels at an average of 20.50 while Pat Cummins has dismissed him 4 times in 7 ODIs.

Prediction

England have won 12 out of the last 16 ODIs between these two sides since 2016 but I expect them to start the series slowly after just winning the T20 World Cup three days ago. Australia’s pacemen will be more than motivated after their poor showing in the World Cup and will be looking to test the English batsmen.

Most importantly, Australia have had more time to prepare for this game after being knocked out of the recent World Cup early so I expect them to win this one.