Twenty20 World Cup / Jaymes Monte / 14 June 2009 / Leave a comment

Ireland may be out of the tournament but Pakistan are schizophrenic in the extreme and odds of [1.08] should be swerved, says Jaymes Monte.

Team News

Abdul Razzaq's successful return to International cricket means that he is a shoo-in to start against Ireland and in truth I'd be very surprised to see any change to the side that humiliated New Zealand. As a result there will be no place for Salman Butt or the terribly out of form Sohail Tanvir.
Trent Johnston doesn't appear to have suffered any recurrence of the injury which kept him out of the India game, and Niall O'Brien isn't likely to pass up this final opportunity to prove his worth. Boyd Rankin and Andrew White could return to freshen up the side that floundered so feebly against New Zealand.

Conditions

Those of you following the World Cup on Sky should prepare yourself for a plethora of highlights as the forecast rain suggests there won't be much live action at The Oval.
Match Odds
'Consistently inconsistent' is a phrase increasingly used to describe this Pakistan side. The performances against Sri Lanka and New Zealand were as contrasting displays as you can wish to see from a cricket nation. Their fielding was abysmal against Sri Lanka with ones becoming twos and twos becoming fours at regular intervals, then against New Zealand everything seemed to stick as they took wonder catches left, right and centre. It's a similar story with the ball; whilst Sohail Tanvir went for 29 off his first two overs against Sri Lanka, Umar Gul recorded the best ever international T20 bowling figures - 5 for 6 - against New Zealand.
Inconsistency means that Pakistan at [1.08] wouldn't be a back for me. Although I don't expect them to win the game, a back of Ireland at [11.0] could provide a good trading opportunity depending on which Pakistan side turns up.

Top Batsman

Younis Khan has top scored for Pakistan in two of their four matches thus far in the tournament, and was second top run scorer against the Dutch. However, he didn't come to the crease until they were four wickets down against New Zealand so I'd advise staying clear of him at [5.0] for this one. Opener Kamran Akmal has been a little hit and miss but against this Irish bowling attack he looks very good value at [4.0].

Featured Market

The likelihood of rain in the area, coupled with the potential one side nature of the game mean that this is likely to be a very low scoring match. Anything bigger than [1.5] on Under 310.5 runs in the Total Match Runs market should be snapped up immediately.