Australia vs India Prediction: We go with 14/1 and 11/2 shots for 2nd ODI

Jamie Pacheco previews the 2nd ODI between Australia and India played at Adelaide on Thursday, with a start time of 04:30, live on TNT Sports.  

Jamie has a 14/1 shot for top India bat and will talk you through his reasoning with that one, while there’s also a good 11/2 chance to top score for the Aussies.  All of my Australia vs India Predictions are below...

*You can check out all of our Cricket Odds over at betfred.com

Team News:

Australia

It's always a bit hard to know exactly what to make of a rain-affected match when even more factors (than usual) come into play.  

But part of the game is to adapt to whatever the conditions are on the day, changes to the number of overs played, adjusted targets and everything else.  

And Australia did that pretty well, restricting India to 136/9 and then chasing that with the minimum of fuss. Skipper Mitch Marsh led the way with 46 in the reply, providing us with a fine 10/3 winner for this column, Marsh being well-supported by a quickfire 37 off 29 by Josh Philippe, before Matt Renshaw helped get them over the line with a calm, unbeaten 21.  

Earlier, Matthew Kuhnemann, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Owen all took two wickets each. 

Alex Carey should be available for this one and if he is, Australia may decide that he or Philippe may just play as a specialist batsman with the other keeping wicket. Adam Zampa should be available too, so the impressive Kuhnemann may have to make way.   

India 

Even allowing for the rain disruptions, India certainly weren't at their best with the bat. Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, neither of whom had played since this year's IPL, understandably looked pretty rusty. Given this is a three match Series and that after that neither is involved in the T20I Series, and they may well both go home as undercooked as when they arrived. 

KL Rahul, who likes to bat in the middle-order in ODIs, top-scored with 38 off 31 but there wasn't much else to write home about with the bat.   

Given the ease with which Australia chased that target and it follows they weren't much better with the ball. Given neither Washington Sundar nor Ntish Kumar Reddu are frontline bowlers, and they may have to think about leaving one of those out at the expense of Kuldeep Yadav, who is almost guaranteed to take wickets.  

Pitch and Conditions

We're at Adelaide for this one. First things first, we're (almost) guaranteed a completed match with the forecast good, as you'd expect.  

Australia have a good win rate at Adelaide over the years with 57 matches hosted here in ODIs yielding 37 wins and 17 defeats. Interestingly, they've never tied a match here, nor had one rained off. That includes winning six of the last eight.  

Still, India won here in 2019, chasing 299, mostly thanks to a Kohli century.   

In 2022, England suffered a similar fate, this time Australia being the ones executing a good chase of 288. David Warner and Steve Smith were the highest scorers in that one for the hosts, but Travis Head contributed with a good 69 on his home ground.  

Then last year, Pakistan reduced Australia to just 163 and chased that for the loss of just one wicket. So, 280-300 is the target for the side batting first but it might not be enough. Bowling first looks the way to go.  

Match Winner odds. 

Australia are 4/6 from 4/5 last time out. That's implied probability of 60% for this game. India are 6/5, or 45.5%.  

Australia have a strong record here at the Adelaide Oval and will have two or three important players coming in for this one, who weren't available last time, which could give them a boost.  

But anything under par batting first and Australia could be in trouble against a star-studded line-up that may be struggling with the conditions, but is full of class.  

So, I'll reluctantly leave this market alone.  

*For all the latest and live Australia vs India Odds then head over to betfred.com 

Top India Batsman  

The 14/1 on Axar Patel is a risk. He batted at 5 last time out and India seem pretty comfortable with him keeping that batting spot with such as shortage of left-handers in the team, given Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja are not involved. The excellent KL Rahul seems happy enough to come in after him at six. 

But there are other reasons for backing Axar beyond just batting position. He's yet to get to 100 in this format but has three fifties from 69 games, many of those games with him coming in at seven or eight; so maybe that's why he doesn't have more fifties.    

He looked in decent touch for his 38 the other day and unlike players such as Kohli, Sharma and Iyer of late, has been playing plenty of white-ball cricket. So, there's no danger of rustiness there. All more than enough reasons to back a 14/1 shot.  

Top Australian Batsman    

If you're looking for another over-priced middle-order batsman in this match, then look no further than Philippe at 11/2, slightly shorter than he was last time out at 6/1, but for decent reasons.  

The Aussies like their keepers to bat up the order in ODIs and for the all-rounders to bat lower down - Glenn Maxwell often bats as low as 7 - so it was no big surprise that Philippe came in at four.  

He played pretty well too for his 37 off 29, with a much higher strike rate than that of Marsh.  

He hasn't had many chances in ODIs over the years, but his List A record is very good with 11 fifties and three hundreds at an average of 35 so he certainly knows what he's doing out there. Australia may decide to not bother playing Carey and giving the Sydney Sixers man another go. If he gets one and bats in the same place, you'll have a good bet going for you.  

Jamie Pacheco Cricket P/L 2025:

• Points Staked: 114.5 
• Points Returned: 105.41 
• Current P/L: -8.09 

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket and European Football 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...