Richard Mann has two bets lined up for the third Test between South Africa and Australia, with the series decider set to begin in Cape Town on Tuesday morning.
Cricket tips: South Africa v Australia
2pts Marco Jansen over 4.5 match wickets at evens (bet365)
2pts Cameron Green top Australia first innings batsman at 6/1 (General)
South Africa bounced back from their first Test defeat by trouncing Australia by an innings and 31 runs in last week’s second Test in Gqeberha.
It’s on to Cape Town for the series finale, with the quick turnaround meaning both sides will need to back up again for what promises to be a fascinating winner-takes-all clash played under in the shadow of the iconic Table Mountain.
For those who believe that momentum in sport really is a thing, it’s hard to envisage anything other than South Africa victory from here, with Australia’s batting looking disjointed and dysfunctional to go alongside genuine concerns about their ageing bowling attack.
Having bowled out South Africa for under 300 twice in Durban, Australia’s bowlers were again outstanding for the first 60 overs last week, only to run out of the petrol as Temba Bavuma and the home tail ground the away attack into the ground.
Ageing Australia vulnerable
Pat Cummins, for so long the dependable workhorse, was significantly down on pace, Mitchell Starc struggled for rhythm, while Josh Hazlewood’s latest fitness drama came via a bout of food poisoning. Nathan Lyon was again left out for perennial super-sub Scott Boland, who looked head and shoulders above his colleagues in taking 5-81.
The longer the South Africa first innings went on, the older and tireder Australia’s attack looked, and it’s worth empathising that innings only lasted 127.1 overs and spanned three days because of so many weather delays. The pacers will have been grateful South Africa opted to enforce the follow-on, but the warning signs were there for all to see.
Boland, so long the stand-in, is surely now the first bowling name on the team sheet this week, and Lyon’s likely return to balance the side and bowl those crucial longer spells means one of Starc or Hazlewood will miss out. With just four wickets in the series so far at an average of 46.00, Cummins is lucky he is captain.
Still, the Australia batting might be in worse shape, with Matt Renshaw’s solo in Durban the difference between defeat and victory there, and Travis Head’s second-innings hundred last week the only moment of cheer for the under-fire batting unit. Australia’s first-innings total of 99 was a shocking effort, coming in the best batting conditions of the match.
I wouldn’t say all is rosy in the South Africa camp. I’d still have a few doubts about their own batting, but Bavuma’s big hundred in the second Test really did set the template against the Australian attack, and the tail bats well and deep, with Marco Jansen at eight and Simon Harmer at nine.
With Jansen taking wickets for fun – 10 in the series already – and Kagiso Rabada fit again, and firing, it’s the hosts who would now appear to hold all the aces.
The market seemingly agrees, the Proteas now finally favourites having begun the series as outsiders, but if the first two games reaffirmed anything, it’s that playing the prices in-play in this format, with changing conditions and two vulnerable batting line-ups, is often the best way to wager.
South Africa drifted out to double-figures on the Betfair Exchange when stumbling tp 92-5 in their first innings at the end of day two last week, that after Australia had mounted a similarly impressive fightback a week earlier.
Jansen and Green the best bets
For now, the obvious play is OVER 4.5 MARCO JANSEN MATCH WICKETS.
Marco Jansen has FIVE! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/5WToCCDOl7
— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) October 21, 2026
The case is pretty simple. Jansen has enjoyed an outstanding series thus far, taking those 10 wickets at 18.00, and his dominance over Australia’s army of left-handers in particular was in evidence in the first innings last week as he finished with impressive figures of 11-2-33-5.
He wasn’t needed to get through too many overs in the second dig as South Africa managed their pacers with an eye on this series finale, and I reckon the left-armer will be primed for one last push on a ground which generally offers plenty of bounce to tall pacers like Jansen.
At the time of writing, it’s unclear whether CAMERON GREEN will be back for Australia, but whether able to bowl or not, the 27-year-old must surely return to a batting order that has holes aplenty.
When Australia were humbled by Bangladesh in Darwin back in August, he was Australia’s stand out performer with a hundred in the second innings, before adding a fine 67 in the following game.
Long touted as Australia’s next big hope, that level of expectation has weighed heavy on Green, but he finally looks comfortable in his own skin, and the more recent signs suggest big things are to come.
What better time to start than in a series decider against the current Test champions, and I make Green a bet to be TOP AUSTRALIA FIRST INNINGS BATSMAN this week.
Preview posted at 19:30 BST on 25/10/26
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Following victory in Leeds, it’s hard to see Dasun Shanaka earning a recall for the tourists, but should he the get the nod, this is a middle-order finisher who, too, could have things fall his way on Sunday.
