Pakistan vs. Netherlands Betting Tips: Babar Azam a nice price for Player of the Match

The second game of the 2023 Cricket World Cup is between the famously inconsistent Pakistan and minnows Netherlands.

This should in theory be an easy victory for Pakistan but they have a knack of dropping the odd game they shouldn’t and will be desperate to get off to a good start.

Matt Banks is here to preview the game and pick out his best bets.

Pakistan are one of the tournament favouirtes and that is due to their gun top order batting and electric new ball bowling.

Any team with Babar Azam and Shaheen Shah Afridi can cause the best teams problems, let alone the Netherlands.

It’s a great story to see the Dutch at this World Cup, and their performance in the qualifying tournament was brilliant, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them lose all nine of their group games.  

Pakistan captain Babar Azam is an absolute superstar and is the number one ranked ODI batsman in the world.

He’s played 108 games in the format scoring 5409 runs at an average of 58.16 with 19 hundreds.

In short, he’s absolutely class and should feast on the Netherlands attack.

Last year Pakistan went to Netherlands for a three match series and he managed scores of 74, 57, 91. Don’t be surprised if he strums an effortless-looking hundred.

The amount of times we’ve seen Shaheen Afridi take wickets in the first over of the game is uncanny.

When he’s swinging it back into the right hander from round the wicket he is devastating and will be keeping the Netherlands top order up at night.

He is one of the best bowlers on the planet and will show that in Pakistan’s tournament opener.