South Africa
Afghanistan
The ICC ODI Cricket World Cup, an exhibition of the beautiful sport of cricket, provides a stage for a global celebration of cricketing excellence. Every four years, nations converge to compete on the grandest platform on the planet for the highly prized title of World Champion.
After being a huge success in the year 2019, the tournament is back in the year 2023, this time in the sub-continent. Before the league matches begin, there are going to be ten warm-up matches between all the teams. The top bookmakers in India have amazing odds for the World Cup.
South Africa and Afghanistan will be playing a warm-up game against each other on Friday. The match will be played at the Greenfield International Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram. The basic purpose of this warm-up game is to give both teams some time to get accustomed to the Indian conditions, which are very different from their respective nations, and to allow the teams to find their best possible combination.
Klassen has been in very good form lately, making his career-best score of 174 in just 83 balls against Australia.
The betting tip is...
Heinrich Klassen will score 49.5+ runs
76 %
24 %
As we say, one’s loss is another’s gain. Anrich Nortje’s injury has opened the gates wide open for the likes of Gerlad Coetzee and Lizaad Williams to showcase their talent on their World Cup debut.
In their recent series against Australia, all of their batters got runs and are in sublime form going into the marquee event. Heinrich Klassen, David Miller, Temba Bavuma, Aiden Markram, etc. are all looking in the best shape to light up this World Cup.
Kagiso Rabada will have some additional responsibility as the senior bowler on the team in the absence of his partner, Anrich Nortje.
Predicted Lineup: Temba Bavuma (c), Quinton de Kock (wk), Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen, David Miller, Heinrich Klassen, Keshav Maharaj, Marco Jansen, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, and Tabraiz Shamsi
Once again, Afghanistan goes into the tournament as the underdog and the team that can do a few upsets, spoiling the party of other teams. The conditions in India will support the Afghan team a lot, and hence they could actually be a party spoiler in this competition.
This team has a quality bowling lineup with the likes of Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Mohammad Nabi, Fazalhaq Farooqi, and Gulbadin Naib.
Najibullah Zadran and Rahmanullah Gurbaz are the players to watch out for in this tournament from the Afghanistan squad.
Predicted Lineup: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatuulah Shahidi (c), Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Gulbadin Naib, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Fazalhaq Farooqi, and Naveen ul Haq
The pitches in the southern region of India are slow and have a lot of purchases in them for the spinners, and hence, this game in Thiruvananthapuram will be decided by which team plays spin better.
South Africa are definitely a stronger team than Afghanistan, but they would not want to take the Afghans lightly as they have the capability to win any game in any situation. South Africa is expected to win the match on Friday.
