Australia vs India Prediction: Sanju and Axar available at big prices

Jamie Pacheco previews the first IT20 of the Series between Australia and India, which will be played at Canberra on Wednesday. The match will start at 08:15 and be broadcast live on TNT Sports.  

Jamie is splitting a single betting point between 6/1 and 25/1 shots on the India Top Batsman market. Let's check out who and why as we go through his Australia vs India Predictions for the opening IT20 on Wednesday morning (UK time)...

*You can check out the Cricket Odds from all of our Cricket Betting markets over on betfred.com

Match Preview:

Australia  

Australia haven't made too many changes as we head into ODI mode with the likes of Mitchell Owen, Travis Head, and Matt Short all involved.  

Josh Philippe, who played the first ODI, has been called up but Alex Carey hasn't. So, it will either be a straight choice between Josh Inglis and Philippe for the keeper's spot, or they may both play.  

Mitch Marsh is still there as skipper, big-hitting Tim David joins the party while Marcus Stoinis, one of Australia's most dependable players in this format for the last decade or so, should also be involved.  

Mitch Starc has been understandably rested (The Ashes aren't too far away, remember) but for some reason, they've decided that it's worth playing Josh Hazlewood. Or at least he's in the squad. The ever-reliable Sean Abbott and Nathan Ellis, a fine bowler himself, are also available But there's no Adam Zampa, who withdrew for personal reasons and is likely to be replaced by either Tanveer Sangha or Matthew Kuhnemann in the team.  

India 

The heroes from the 3rd ODI - Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli - have flown home, given they no longer play IT20s. Neither does Ravindra Jadeja, so he's not here, either.  

Skipper Sky Yadav, Sanju Samson, Jitesh Sharma, Abishek Sharma, Shivam Dube, and, most importantly, Jasprit Bumrah, arrive for the IT20 leg of the tour. 

Spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Varun Chakravarthy are also included.   Axar Patel, who never seems to get any sort of break whatever the format India are playing, is also kept on.  

As ever, it's not so easy to guess what their XI will be, but they'll be tempted to play at least two frontline spinners, one of whom is likely to be Axar, also because of his batting abilities.  

Shreyas Iyer lacerated his spleen in the 3rd ODI, so he won't play, but he may not have played anyway.

Pitch and conditions

They've only ever played five T20Is at Canberra, of which only four were completed. Australia have a 50%-win rate at the ground, beating Pakistan in 2019 and Sri Lanka in 2022 and losing to India in 2020 and England in 2022.  

The first innings scores were 150 (chased by Australia), 161 (defended by India), 121 (chased by Australia) and 178 (defended by England).  

So, no bias in terms of batting first and not an easy ground at which to score big runs. 170 could well be enough.  

There's a chance of rain but estimates make it 95% that we'll have a completed match.  

Match Winner Odds

Australia are evens, 50%, with India 4/5, or 55.6%. Once we've removed the house edge on both prices, that makes India the marginal favourites.  

It's always a bit surprising to see Australia as outsiders in any format at home but then again, India won the last T20I World Cup, the recent Asia Cup and are Number 1 in the T20I ICC rankings. Australia, by the way, are second.  

With the odds that tight, there's no real angle to play, so we won't.  

*For all the latest and live Austalia vs India 1st IT20 Odds then head over to betfred.com 

India Top Batsman  

Last week we took on Virat Kohli runs in the 3rd ODI without success, but that's not to say opposing favourites is a flawed strategy, so we're happy to try again, but in a different way this time.  

Abishek Sharma (3/1), Shubman Gill (14/5) and Sky Yadav (7/2) are the favourites to top score for India but we're swerving the lot firstly in favour of Sanju Samson, who has decent number in this format, the most eye-catching of which is his strike rate of 148.  

That's crucial because it means he can arrive at the crease with someone just out on 50-odd and he'll have enough deliveries to reach that thanks to his big hitting. We expect him to come in at 4 or 5 and given this isn't an easy ground to score on, he may arrive at the crease with not too much to beat. At 6/1, you can see the appeal of the wager.  

But at the somewhat ridiculous odds of 25/1, we have to have an interest in Axar Patel, too. We keep saying he's often underrated for top bowler honours and often for top bat ones, of which this is a good example.  

It's true that it's been a while since he won this betting heat, but that's even more reason to not want to miss out on it if he does do it, at last. We never quite know where he's going to bat but with lots of right-handers in the team, they may decide he can do a job as a left-handed batsman at 5 or 6. If that's the case, that 25/1 is going to look big indeed.  

Jamie Pacheco Cricket P/L 2025: 

• Points Staked: 114.5 
• Points Returned: 105.41 
• Current P/L: -12.59