Botha to be inspired South Africa pick to spin out Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s capitulation against the spin of Ajantha Mendis in their T20 World Cup opener with Sri Lanka makes Johan Botha a particularly lucrative price to be South Africa’s top wicket taker in their first match at the tournament.

There is little value in backing South Africa at 1/16 to win their Group C opener and in the process ensure that Zimbabwe are the first team confirmed as eliminated from the tournament.

Zimbabwe lost by 82 runs to World Cup hosts Sri Lanka in their opening encounter, with spinner Mendis finishing with spectacular figures of 6-8.

This failure to play spin or a bowler with the ability to turn the ball both ways was their obvious failure and Botha is the most like Mendis in the South African ranks.

He is by no means a certainty to play with South Africa having such a strong squad, but punters prepared to take a risk on his selection can benefit from 9/2 that he takes the most Zimbabwean wickets.

Botha has finished with identical figures of 2-19 in two of his last three T20 games and could easily produce his best ever display in this format here.

Zimbabwe have to improve substantially in all areas if they want a chance of causing the shock of the tournament thus far.

One area where they were not too bad against Sri Lanka was at the top of the batting order, with opening pair Vusi Sibanda and Hamilton Masakadza putting on 37 for the first wicket.

In fact, the Zimbabwe openers have made at least 22 for the first wicket in three of their last four matches and so they may be some value in the 5/6 that they make at least 16 this time.

Meanwhile, Masakadza has reached double figures in all of his five T20 innings in this calendar year including two half centuries, top scoring for Zimbabwe with the bat on three of these occasions.

He looks reasonable at 7/2 to top their scorecard again, while it is 4/5 that he scores at least 15.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing