- Perth pitch a conundrum
- Dutch no fun at 10.09/1
- Pakistan pace attack on alert
Netherlands v Pakistan
Sunday 30 October, 08:00
TV: Live on Sky Sports
Team news
The Dutch, like Zimbabwe, are a bowling unit. they have good plans and they can put them into operation under pressure in the middle. They were far from disgraced when they restricted India to 179 on a flat one at the SCG.
However, their batting is not up to scratch. Max O'Dowd has a good record on top bats, we're losing patience with Scotty Edwards while a return for Roelof van der Merwe might be useful.
Probable XI: O'Dowd, Singh, de Leede, Ackermann, Cooper, Edwards, Pringle, van Beek, Ahmad, Klaasen, van Meekeren
Pakistan have shown the resilience of soggy tissue paper so far. They should have beaten India and Zimbabwe with more mental gumption. As a result their implied probability for a semi spot is 10%.
Haider Ali should probably get the chop for consistently dreadful performances. Asif Ali missed out against Zimbabwe and should come back in.
Possible XI: Rizwan, Babar, Masood, Iftikhar, Shadab, Haider, Nawaz, Wasim, Afridi, Naseem, Rauf
Pitch report
The Perth pitch is one of the biggest conundrums in this tournament. It was a batting paradise just before it began. Scores of 112, 157 and 138 are massive trend busters. It looked a decent track in Zim-Pak. Sticking with the historic trend for runs with Pakistan batting first goes against that Dutch mean machine. A lay of Pakistan for 180 or more could be cheap.
How to play
Pakistan may well have checked out already. But we're not wasting hard-earned profits on the Dutch here at 10.09/1. Their batting isn't durable enough.
Indeed, we're concerned that they could be rolled quite cheaply with Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah and Haris Rauf steaming in. For their flaws, Pakistan have the quickest attack in the world and it could be a baptism of fire.
Tops value
We dodged Mohammad Rizwan against Zimbabwe for top bat but we'll go back to him here. He has been boosted to 5/2 by Sportsbook, the same price he was going off at against England pre-tournament.
Spreading stakes across Afridi, Rauf and Naseem for man of the match might not be the worst idea at 7s, 8s and 12s.