The next six weeks are a fascinating period in the cricket calendar as the biggest cricket-playing nations in the world all look to fine-tune their games and peak at the right time ahead of the ODI World Cup in October. For Australia, that means heading to South Africa for an eight-game white ball series, to be played at breakneck speed over the next two and a half weeks.
For Australia, it’s been a minute between white ball tours, having had the majority of their focus on The Ashes over recent months. However, they head to South Africa as the No. 1 ODI team in the world and will be eager to grab some quick momentum ahead of their World Cup campaign.
Can South Africa, who only just managed to gain automatic qualification for this edition of the World Cup, upset Australia and make a statement themselves? Read on for all of our SA vs AUS cricket betting tips.
| ℹ️ Tournament: | Australia tour of South Africa 2023; Three T20Is, five ODIs |
| 🏟️ Venues: | Stadiums across South Africa |
| 🗓️ Dates: | Wednesday, 30 August to Sunday, 17 September |
Before we get into our SA vs AUS cricket T20I betting predictions, let’s look at what the bookies have to say ahead of this series. Here are the South Africa vs Australia odds for the first T20I:
As expected with T20I odds, particularly in the first match of a series, the odds are relatively close here. Australia have their noses in front, but only just, at 1.53 (8/15) to 2.26 (5/4). However, looking at the ODI World Cup odds, we can see that Australia are much more favored than South Africa, with odds of 5.00 (4/1) compared to 11.00 (10.1), giving us an indication of how this series may unfold.
Australia and South Africa have a long legacy of playing cricket against each other, with the Aussies first heading over to South Africa for a series in 1903-04. Since then, they’ve played 203 times, with Australia holding an edge at 114-85 in the head-to-head.
Looking across all three formats, here’s how the past five meetings between South Africa and Australia have panned out:
It’s not been pretty for South Africa in T20Is of late. They failed to progress from the group stage at the T20 World Cup after losing to the Netherlands and Pakistan in their final two games. Then, South Africa backed up by losing 2-1 to the West Indies in their only series this year.
Australia have not played a T20I since failing to progress beyond the group stage at the T20 World Cup in 2022. After losing to New Zealand and suffering a no result against England, Australia won three on the bounce against Sri Lanka, Ireland, and Afghanistan, but it wasn’t enough to make the next stage.
Looking at all the odds from bookmakers in South Africa, we’ve come up with the best SA vs AUS cricket betting tip ahead of the first match this Wednesday. Unfortunately, bookies weren’t generous with the odds line for this matchup a few days before the start, so let’s focus on it only:
3 (50%)
(50%) 3
Despite both of these sides being reasonably out of form in the T20 format, Australia is our pick to start the series fast on Wednesday. Simply put, the Aussies are world-beaters in the two other formats, and with plenty of the T20 squad featuring players that performed in the recent Ashes, it’s hard to see the visitors not performing here.
Look for some of the top-order batsmen to put in big performances as they make the most of Steve Smith being away injured, and look to secure the few remaining spots in Australia’s ODI World Cup squad later in September.
Australia and South Africa are set to have an eight-match tune-up over the next few weeks, shaking off the dust from their respective white ball games ahead of the ODI World Cup in October. While these results don’t matter much in the scheme of things, both sides will be eager to finalize their squads and build some confidence, and we expect Australia to be the ones who will perform best in the opening T20I of the series.
