Richard Mann's free betting tips: T20I - Australia v India
India begin their tour of Australia with a T20I at Brisbane on Wednesday morning and Richard Mann is betting big.
Recommended bets: Australia v India
Make no mistake, Australian cricket is in turmoil.
The Newlands ball-tampering scandal is still an open wound Down Under, so much so that Cricket Australia have opted not to reduce the bans handed down to Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, and performances out in the middle have done little to raise spirits.
The scandal that rocked cricket came in the middle of a series defeat in South Africa and Tim Paine's Test outfit suffered the same fate against Pakistan only a few weeks ago, despite the captain's best efforts to reinvent Australian cricket both on and off the field.
The absence of Warner and Smith in particular has really hurt the already thin Australian batting stocks and this loss has been felt most keenly in white-ball cricket.
Australia lost 5-0 when utterly outclassed by England in their ODI series last summer, with Shaun Marsh forced to share a heavy burden with the bat, and a hammering in the subsequent T20I offered further evidence of how far they have fallen.
Australia were then routed 3-0 by Pakistan in the T20I leg of the aforementioned tour of Dubai before returning home to be beaten in both the ODI series and the one-off T20I against South Africa.
By any measure, this current Australian white-ball unit is a poor one.
While the Test side will be boosted by the return of Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood to the bowling ranks, neither will play on Wednesday, nor will Mitchell Starc, and that leaves the hosts shorn of three more of their biggest stars.
Billy Stanlake offers genuine pace to complement Andrew Tye's terrific variations but the temptation to leave out leg-spinner Adam Zampa against an Indian batting line-up as fearless as this one in favour of an all-pace attack would leave skipper Aaron Finch with very little variety at his disposal.
The batting might be a greater concern for Australia, though. For all Chris Lynn has proven himself to be one of the most destructive domestic T20 batsmen on the planet, he has yet to crack international cricket in the same way while India's vast array of spin options promises to cause D'Arcy Short plenty of problems.
Glenn Maxwell, for all his latent ability, continues to prove an enigma while exciting rookie Ben McDermott has endured a frustrating sequence of run-outs in recent weeks which will have done little to help him settle into the international arena.
By contrast, India will arrive in Australia full of confidence having beaten West Indies 3-0 in their most recent T20I series after they'd outgunned the same opponents in the preceding ODI instalment.
A look further back at India's form makes for even more impressive reading. Aside from pushing the hosts hard in the Test leg of their tour of England last summer, India also won a T20I series of the highest quality and went down all guns blazing in the 50-over offering.
Given the fact that England have been the dominant force in white-cricket over the last 18 months, and barely broke sweat to beat Australia earlier in the year, India deserve a huge amount of credit for their efforts there.
As ever, the supremely-gifted Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli led a frightening batting line-up while the exciting KL Rahul, who has made a Test century in Australia, kicked off that tour of England with a brilliant hundred in the opening T20I at Old Trafford.
Rohit's record against Australia is outstanding and his performances in Australia to date have been most impressive. His 50-over numbers read 1143 runs at an average of 51.95 while he has made a couple of fifties in T20Is on Australian soil, too.
Not to be undone, Kohli averages a stunning 84.00 in T20Is in Australia to sit alongside his four ODI centuries Down Under.
Kohli is, by some distance, the best batsman in the world and his exploits in England only a few months ago put to bed any notion that he isn't able to dominate in certain conditions.
He has proven, unequivocally, that he is a man for all scenarios, in all forms of the game, and the next few years might well be his best yet given he has only just turned 30 and is currently at the peak of his powers. A frightening thought.
With Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah forming a wonderful new and old-ball pace attack to complement wrist-spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal, India look to have most bases covered.
Their fielding, once the Achilles heel of Indian cricket, has become very good under Kohli's driven captaincy and as we've seen over the last year or so, this side doesn't shirk a battle.
Against a weak Australian side that is short of quality and low on confidence, India rate a knocking bet at 5/6 and should be backed accordingly.
Posted at 1235 GMT on 20/11/18.
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