Pakistan vs Zimbabwe Betting Tips

Haris Rauf to be Pakistan’s Top Bowler

Before we move onto our recommended bet, a moment for reflection. Here’s what we said ahead of England vs Ireland:

“The best scenario for them (Ireland) would be to have a rain-shortened match that was maybe 10-overs-a-side and hope that one of their batsmen can go big.

If that’s what happens and there’s a reduction in overs, then a small gamble on Ireland might be worth it.”

As we know, Ireland’s batsmen did go big, the rain did come and Ireland did end up winning!

So we were on the money in terms of the thinking, it was just a case that we didn’t go ahead with the bet. It happens and Ireland did of course ride their luck.

The lesson of course is that rain can even things up by making conditions very tricky and that a reduced game gives the outsider a better chance than usual.

But no two games of cricket are the same and it’s not worth backing the outsiders all the time and hoping for the heavens to open.

Especially when we can have a good idea of the weather forecast ourselves!

There was a high likelihood of rain ahead of that England game but it drops to just 5% for this match.

And in light of that, without the assistance of bad weather, Zimbabwe probably aren’t worth a gamble at 7.0.

So instead we’ll go with Haris Rauf being Pakistan’s Top Bowler.

His raw pace as one of the quickest bowlers in the competition is more likely to trouble Zimbabwe’s batsmen than the trickery of Shaheen Shah Afrid, the spin of Shadab Khan or even the accuracy of Naseem Shah.

So go with Rauf to be their top bowler on the day at a decent price of 3.6.

And if you haven’t read it already, here’s our BlueChip review.

Pakistan Recent Form

Pakistan will be feeling really sick about their loss to India on Sunday.

Having made a poor start, they recovered really well to post a par score of 159/8, thanks to fine fifties from Shan Masood and Iftikhar Ahmed.

Masood remained unbeaten but with a considerably better strike rate, it was Ahmed who actually played the better of the two knocks.

There was also some entertaining late-hitting from Shaheen Shah Afridi, of all people.

A huge six and a classy four got them to that decent total and if Afridi can carry on improving his batting, he’ll become an even better player. They may well need some more lower order runs from him in this tournament, too.

But Afridi didn’t have the best of days with the ball, going wicketless for a change, and that was a big contributing factor in why they ended up losing.

The most obvious reason of all is that they couldn’t get Virat Kohli out and ultimately paid the price.

But more to the point, they made mistakes at the death which is surprising because that’s normally an area where they’re generally pretty good.

First Haris Rauf conceded two sixes off the last two balls of his spell to Kohli, then Mohammad Nawaz, surprisingly bowling the last over of the match, was indisciplined.

He conceded two wides and a no-ball that went for six and there more than anywhere, is where the game was lost.

So bitter disappointment but all is not lost.

That was their toughest match of the Group stages and their net run rate won’t have taken any damage because of how tight the win was.

They’ve still got a very decent chance of progressing to the next round.

Zimbabwe Recent Form

To say Zimbabwe got fortunate against South Africa on Monday is a huge understatement.

South Africa absolutely raced to what was almost the total they needed after rain had reduced the match to 9 overs a side, which in fact was less than 9 overs for South Africa, who were given a revised total after several interruptions while they were batting.

But the rain kept coming back and with the cut-off point in the match approaching by the minute, in the end the game was called off before SA could get to that total.

And with that, Zimbabwe got a no-result and a point on the board.

They didn’t bowl particularly well in what were horrendous conditions and Quinton de Kock absolutely tore their bowling attack apart.

But where they do deserve credit is in the way Zimbabwe managed to get themselves to 79 off those nine overs.

Some late boundaries meant they had something to bowl at and more to the point, those extra 10 runs or so meant that in the end South Africa didn’t have time to get them.

Richard Nagarava slipped while fielding on the greasy surface and had to come off the field so we’ll have to wait and see if he’s ok to play.

Pakistan vs Zimbabwe Head-to-Head

Remarkably, these two have played each other 17 times in T20Is, which is quite a lot.

Less remarkably, the head-to-head record is 16-1 in favour of Pakistan.

But the one win they secured wasn’t so long ago. In a three-match Series in Zimbabwe last year, they won the second match. Defending just 118, they bowled Pakistan out for just 99.

Ryan Burl and Luke Jongwe had particularly good games with the ball in that one.

Venue & conditions

We’re at Perth for this one and so far we’ve had England vs Afghanistan and Australia vs Sri Lanka played here.

Both games saw batsmen struggle against good, disciplined bowling so this may not be the high-scoring match that Perth is usually known for.

Zimbabwe may struggle to get 140 batting first so consider that on the first innings runs line, while Pakistan may find Zimbabwe’s bowling and a tricky surface a challenge. But they should still get around 165 if they get to bat first.

165 or so first up should be more than enough if it’s Pakistan batting first and Zimbabwe will have a decent chance if they get to that score batting first themselves.