England vs South Africa Prediction: Top of the 11/2 Klassen

It’s England vs South Africa on Friday, June 21 (15:30, Sky Sports Cricket) at Gros Islet as England and South Africa go to battle in a match where their current head-to-head T20I record intriguingly stands at 12-12.

Fresh from a 4/1 winner on India’s Sky Yadav for top bat, this time James Pacheco has got two former winners of this column carrying his money on the top SA bat and top England bowler markets, at 11/2 and 3/1 as he takes us through his England vs South Africa Predictions...

England

Is this 2010 and 2022 all over again?

In both those T20 World Cup wins, England started slowly, lost a Group match and threatened to not make it out of the Group Stages because making the most of their second chance, improving…and going all the way.

That heavy defeat to Australia seems along time ago now after they responded with big wins over Oman and Namibia, before beating the Windies pretty comfortably in their first Super 8s match on Thursday morning.

One more win from their next two matches and they’ll be pretty sure of a place in the semis.

Four different bowlers picked up a wicket each in that win over the West Indies with spinners Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali (two of those four) returning the best economy rates.

Chasing 181, Phil Salt took control with 87 off 47 while Jonny Bairstow smashed 48 off 26 to make sure run rate was never going to be an issue.

Sam Curran seems to be preferred to Chris Jordan at the moment.

Possible XI: Buttler, Salt, Bairstow, Brook, Ali, Livingstone, Sam Curran, Archer, Rashid, Wood, Topley.

South Africa

In the end it was a bit closer than they would have liked and than it should have been.

But a win they got over the dangerous USA, the points are on the board and that’s five from five now. And like England, they have a foot in the semis.

Star of the show was Quinton de Kock with 74 off 40 with Aiden Markram (46) and Heinrich Klassen (36) also doing their bit to get their side to 194/4.

With the ball, Kagiso Rabada did the early damage with two wickets, picked up a third later on and was well assisted by the ever-reliable Keshav Maharaj, who took 1-24 off 4.

Maharaj was picked ahead of Ottneil Bartman and who plays ahead of this one will depend on the conditions on the day.

Possible XI: de Kock, Hendricks, Markram, Klassen, Miller, Stubbs, Jansen, Maharaj, Rabada, Nortje, Shamsi.

Pitch and conditions

Gros Islet is where the West Indies and England had a relatively high-scoring encounter on Thursday and which saw first innings scores of 218, 201 and 180 prior to that.

So it’s probably the best batting wicket in the tournament which makes for an intriguing prospect because both sides can capitalise on flat pitches with their big-hitters.

Bat first, bat big and look to create scoreboard pressure? Or know your target and what you need to do? No, I don’t know, either.

England vs South Africa Odds

*Please click on the link above to be taken to the main England vs South Africa T20 World Cup market page on betfred.com (or app) for all the live betting prices on this match.

England are 8/11, South Africa 11/10. So pretty much what we’d expect the prices to be.

South Africa are the unbeaten side, England the ones improving game by game. Does the overall head to head record offer any clues? No. It’s 12 wins each and three for each side over the last six encounters so we’re no wiser in that regard.

The obvious ploy is to go with the slightly bigger side in terms of prices but the slight problem is we’re yet to be convinced the Proteas can handle the pressure of the biggest games in this competition if history is anything to go by. So we’ll leave the main market well alone.

South Africa Top Runscorer

Heinrich Klassen has already delivered a winner to us at 11/2 against Bangladesh.

In addition to his outstanding numbers, both in general terms and in terms of winning this market, we noticed last time out that those odds were considerably bigger than they were at other bookmakers. It’s the same again: only two are going slightly bigger at 6/1 whereas the vast majority are going 9/2 so we’re getting a full point bigger here at Betfred than the industry average: betting value.

England are good upfront with the ball so we don’t think the openers will have a chance to hog the lion’s share of the overs and think we’ll see Klassen strut to the crease with plenty of time to make his mark.

David Miller isn’t the worst price at 11/2 either and I wouldn’t put anyone off ditching the pair of them.

England Top Wicket-Taker

This market is a little bit of a minefield because England may well use seven bowlers again: Topley, Archer, Wood, Curran, Rashid, Ali and Livingstone.

So, let’s work out how to narrow this down. Livingstone (17/2) may not bowl at all, Ali is very tempting at 13/2 but the same applies to him. Wood (100/30) is too quick for most on his day and gets wickets that day but an expensive burst could see him hooked.

So that leaves Topley (100/30), Archer (16/5) and Rashid (3/1).

You could make a case for any of those three, but the preference is for previous 100/30 winner for this column: Rashid.

I already mentioned the two England spinners returned the best figures at this same ground a couple of days ago and of the two, Rashid is the better bowler in this format and the one virtually guaranteed to bowl his four so that’s why he’s the pick.

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket for us at Betfred Insights. You can check out his Cricket Betting Tips, along with those from the rest of the team, at our Cricket hub page...