Close series in store as South Africa visit rampant India

South Africa will have to come up with a strategy for dealing with Mahendra Singh Dhoni if they are to beat India in the forthcoming series © Getty Images

Having hammered Sri Lanka, the world's second ranked one-day side, India begin a five-match series against South Africa on Wednesday with the first match in Hyderabad. India are 1/2 (1.50) favourites to come out on top, while South Africa are a tempting proposition at 6/4 (2.50).

With an unchanged squad for the first three games, India are understandable favourites for the opener, at 8/13 (1.61) while South Africa, traditionally one of the best sides in the world at the limited overs form of the game, are 6/5 (2.20) to take an early lead.

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India have won six and lost just one of their eight one-day games in Hyderabad and they should be full of confidence after the drubbing of Sri Lanka, which saw the return of Sachin Tendulkar after injury and was an excellent start to Raul Dravid's reign as captain. However, they will be taking on a South Africa side who appear back to their best in one-day matches, having won 16 of their last 18 games (the other two were rained off) and having hammered New Zealand 4-0 last time out.

Graeme Smith's side are riding high at the moment and he will be confident of taking a big scalp by winning on Indian soil. The two sides have not met in India, in one-dayers, since 1999/2000, and India only shade the previous encounters, having won nine and lost six of the 15 meetings. It is interesting to see that many of the most recent encounters were run-fests, with four of the last eight innings over 300 and six of the last 10 being better than 250.

Batting markets
Tendulkar, who looked like he had never been away, is favourite to be top India batsman at 3/1 (4.00), while opener Virender Sehwag and captain Dravid are 4/1 (5.00) and Gautam Gambhir and Mahendra Dhoni - top scorer in the series against Sri Lanka - are both 5/1 (6.00).

For South Africa, the brilliant Jacques Kallis and Smith are 3/1 (4.00) favourites, AB De Villiers is 9/2 (5.50) and Justin Kemp, who is fulfilling the role that used to belong to Lance Klusener, is 6/1 (7.00).

Kemp is a massive hitter when he gets going and it's a slight surprise to see South Africa as the outsiders to hit the most sixes at 7/4 (2.75), to India's 4/6 (1.66). Tendulkar, as usual, is favourite to be Man of the Match, at 7/1 (8.00), closely followed by Kallis at 8/1 (9.00), while Smith and Sehwag are 10/1 (11.00).

This one could just come down to home advantage and since India have it, I'd side with them to shade the opening match.

Cambers' Call: India to beat South Africa in 1st One-Day International - 8/13 (1.61)

Please note that odds are correct at time of publication and are subject to change.

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