Pakistan vs India Prediction: Why Rauf and Patel are carrying our money in cricket’s biggest game

Pakistan v India isn't just another game of cricket, it's the biggest of the lot and takes place on Sunday, start time of 09:00, with live coverage on Sky Sports Cricket.  

Jamie Pacheco is playing the Pakistan top bowler market and is also having a few quid on Axar Patel to hit a six in the game. Keep reading for his reasons for his two bets.

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Team News

Pakistan  

Just about everything that could have gone wrong against New Zealand, did. They lost the match, they lost by a fair margin which damaged their net run rate, and they also lost Fakhar Zahman to injury. Incredibly, he got injured while fielding just two balls into the match and though he came out to bat at four, he was clearly hampered and pretty much batting on one leg, and in the end did the Pakistan innings more harm than good.    

Imam Ul-Haq, who is an excellent player in this format is his likely replacement (it still needs to be signed off by the ICC) but what he has in consistency and the ability to accumulate runs, he lacks in firepower and the ability to really accelerate.  He should open alongside Babar Azam.  

We shouldn't be too harsh on Pakistan. It was a good toss for New Zealand to win and all of Tom Latham, Will Young and Graham Phillips batted beautifully to get their side to such as big total.  

Only Abrar Ahmed bowed with any control (1-47) with Shaheen Shah Afridi going wicketless and Haris Rauf taking two but being expensive. 

The result is what amounts to their ultimate nightmare: they (most likely) need to beat India, in Dubai, to stay alive in a tournament they're hosting. Unless Bangladesh somehow beat New Zealand, which let's face it, is pretty unlikely.  

Possible XI:   Imam, Babar, Shakeel, Rizwan, Shakeel, Tayyab, Khushdil, Afridi, Naseem, Rauf, Abrar.  

India  

It was no surprise that India won more convincingly than anyone else so far this tournament. After all, not only are they the best team in the tournament by just about every metric but they were playing the weakest side in the competition in Bangladesh. 

They reduced the Tigers to 228 and chased it with 21 balls remaining, perhaps the only surprise being that they didn't get to the total sooner or that they lost four wickets in doing so.  

It's hard to know what their rivals for the title are more worried about. The fact Mohammed Shami took 5-53 in a super bowling display, well assisted in particular by Harshit Rana and Axar Patel, or that Shubman Gill hit a flawless unbeaten century, with Rohit in good form as well with a quickfire 41. 

Kuldeep Yadav went wicketless but then gain didn't go for many, so should be continued to be preferred to Arun Chakravarthy.   

 Possible XI: Rohit, Gill, Kohli, Iyer, Axar, Rahul, Pandya, Jadeja, Rana, Shami, Kuldeep. 

Pitch and conditions   

We're at Dubai again, because as we know, India refused to travel to Pakistan so chose where they fancied playing.  

It's likely to prove to be the lowest-scoring of the grounds used at this tournament but it's not so easy knowing what a par score is because a poor Bangladesh batting line-up against an excellent India one was never going to be a good indication.  

But around 275-280 is probably a good initial target for the side batting first.  

There didn't seem to be much dew when the Tigers bowled second against India here so it's not as much of an advantage to chase here in Dubai as it has been in the past. 

Pakistan vs India Odds

2/1 on Pakistan (implied probability 33%) may look like a big price for the famously mercurial Pakistan who on any day can be absolute world-beaters. Spoiler alert: it's not.  

They're missing Zaman and good as Imam is, he's probably had his feet up for the last few weeks rather than preparing for one of the toughest tournaments in world cricket. Star bowler Afridi was poor last time out. India know conditions in Dubai better than Pakistan do at the moment, having already played there. Pakistan have an awful record against India in major tournaments. We could go on. We won't.  

You'll see far worse bets this week than the 4/11 on India (73%) but if that's not the sort of price for you, keep reading.  

1pt Back Haris Rauf to be Pakistan Top Bowler @ 14/5

I'd love to tell you that this huge match is full of unmissable betting opportunities with a handful of great value bets. Second spoiler alert: it's not.  

As explained last time, the India top batsman market is a minefield. You could argue Axar Patel (more on him in a bit) is a spot of value at 9/1 given his ability and batting position but you'd still need a bit of a top-order collapse for him to be in business and that's not looking likely. The Pakistan top bat market isn't much easier to work out, either.  

So instead, we turn to Haris Rauf for top Pakistan bowler. It seems like he's fully fit after all and shared honours with Naseem Shah for top bowler last time out with both taking two wickets. He looks in better rhythm than Afridi- his long-term 'rival' in this market- and as an added bonus, is also a bigger price than Afridi (13/5) so it's an easy choice in the end. 

1pt Back Axar Patel Over 0.5 sixes @ 13/8

It seems the decision to bat Axar Patel at Number 5 isn't just a one-off experiment but rather, the strategy for the whole of this tournament. As explained before, the reason for it is that the only other proper batsman in the side who is left-handed is Ravindra Jadeja, and he's very much a number 7/8. Teams like having at least one right/left hand combination in the middle-order to make life harder for the opposition bowlers; so he's been coming in at 5. Now you know.  

He may not be around long enough to have a chance of top-scoring, but he should get enough time at the crease to hit a six.   

He has 28 sixes in 64 ODIs so far but what those numbers don't tell you is that for the majority of his career he's batted at 7 or 8 in this format. So the fact he's batting much higher these days obviously increases his chances of hitting that one six that we need him to, which is a 13/8 chance.