Hosts too good for England?

Things hot up in the Twenty20 World Cup on Sunday with the first three matches in the Super Eight stage. India take on New Zealand and Australia face Bangladesh, but the biggest match of the day is the one at Newlands between hosts South Africa and England.

South Africa have looked pretty impressive in the competition so far and loom equipped to challenge Australia for overall glory.

England, by contrast, took care of Zimbabwe easily enough but were humbled by Australia and are still inconsistent, albeit with the odd moment of excellence.

However, since no points are carried forward, each team is back to square one, which places even greater emphasis on the first matches in the Super Eight stage.

The question for England will be whether they should change a top order that has yet to fire. Promoting Andrew Flintoff or Kevin Pietersen would be popular with the fans but captain Paul Collingwood seems to think they can do well, so I don't expect to see too many changes, if any.

On paper, South Africa have the better side and bet365 make them 8/15 (1.53) to England's 11/8 (2.37), which seems about right.

Pietersen is 3/1 favourite to be England's top runscorer - and he usually plays well against the country of his birth - while Darren Maddy is 10/3, Matt Prior 7/2 and Luke Wright 4/1. Vikram Solanki is 5/1 while Collingwood is 6/1 and Flintoff 10/1.

For South Africa, Herschelle Gibbs and captain Graeme Smith are both 3/1 while AB De Villiers is 7/2. Bodi, Dumini and Morkel are 4/1 while the big-hitting Justin Kemp is 5/1 and the ever useful Mark Boucher is a 6/1 chance.

When the two sides met in the World Cup in the West Indies earlier this year, South Africa were easy winners and I'd be surprised if they don't win this one, though it could be a close call, with Pietersen likely to star for England.