South Africa v India Second ODI Tips: Keep faith with 9/2 Klaasen

• South Africa outsiders

• St George's Park pitch tricky

• Klaasen a bet at 9/25.50

South Africa v India
Tuesday 19 December, 11:00
TV: Live on Sky Sports

South Africa v India Second ODI team news

South Africa could be forgiven for feeling a little bewildered for the thrashing they received in game one. There was nothing wrong with the balance of their batting line-up with Wiaan Mulder and Andile Phelukwayo at Nos 8 and 9.

The hosts are weak in the bowling group with Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee, Lungi Ngidi, Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje all unavailable. But that had nothing to do with being shot out for 116.

If there is seam and swing - as can be the case at this venue - South Africa may bring in an extra pacer for Tabraiz Shamsi.

Possible XI: De Zorzi, Hendricks, van der Dussen, Markram, Klaasen, Miller, Mulder, Phehlukwayo, Maharaj, Baartman/Burger, Williams

India will surely be unchanged after an eight-wicket win in Jo'burg. Arshdeep Singh and Avesh Khan took five and four respectively. They packed their team with bowlers and have admitted they feared a strong South Africa batting display.

The result is Arshdeep batting at No 8. That's not a great look and could be exposed at some stage during the series.

Possible XI: Sudharsan, Gaikwad, Shreyas, Varma, Rahul, Samson, Axar, Arshdeep, Kuldeep, Mukesh, Chahal/Avesh

South Africa v India Second ODI pitch report

Six of the last seven have been won by the chaser at St George's Park. Unsurprisingly the highest first-innings score in that sequence is 274. It does date back to 2015, though. It's not ideal for punters. We want flat tracks with, for India at least, the feeling being that this group of bowlers are pricey. It generally doesn't pay to overeact to a recency bias but the innings runs market could be one to leave alone given conditions.

South Africa v India Second ODI match odds

South Africa are 2.186/5 and India 1.8810/11. Our feeling before game one was that this was a choice affair at the least. India felt the same as their team meeting on the eve of the game was all about restricting the South Africa batting to under 400.

We still feel that South Africa are the wrong price, and as stated earlier knee-jerk reactions are not welcome. At this ground the bowler-friendly conditions may assist their more inexperienced group so the batting edge they have should remain.

South Africa v India Second ODI player bets

Heinrich Klaasen was our bet for game one and we're not likely to abandon him so soon. Especially after he drifted from 4/15.00 to 9/25.50 with Sportsbook - that's a bet for a man that wins 22% of the time.

We are keeping a close eye on KL Rahul. Rahul wins 18.2% of the time but we need bigger than the 4/15.00. Perhaps one for game three when Sportsbook realise he could be down at No 5. A price which is wrong on batting order is Tilak Varma at 15/28.50. He was at No 4 in game one.

Read Big Bash analysis here