The T20 World Cup gets underway on Tuesday and rather than launch with a bang it kicks off with a potentially intriguing match between Hong Kong and Zimbabwe in Group B of the competition.
Hong Kong took care of Bangladesh in the 2014 version of this event so they have previous when it comes to causing upsets while Zimbabwe are the only full member nation in this group and will be expected to win it. With that comes a certain type of pressure and it will be interesting to see how the African side cope with that.
Hong Kong had a bit of a wretched time of it in the qualifying for the Asia Cup so they have a little bit to prove here but they should be able to play with a fair amount of freedom and that could well serve them positively as they look to get off to a winning start.
While we can’t look into warm up matches it was slightly worrying that Zimbabwe lost to a local Indian team in their opening one. In fairness they did react to see off Ireland but you get the feeling they are going to rely heavily on certain men if they are to make it into the main draw.
It looks like Hong Kong are set to make Ryan Campbell the oldest debutant in this form of the game at 44 years of age. He is looking like opening the batting alongside Jamie Atkinson with Babar Hayat and Mark Chapman coming in behind them. Tanwir Afzal will lead the side into battle.
Zimbabwe have a few selection issues to solve and that mainly comes in their bowling stocks. Tendai Chatara, Donald Tiripano, Tinashe Panyangara, Tawanda Mupariwa and Tendai Chisoro look to be fighting it out for three seam spots with Wellington Masakadza the sole spinner.
This whole group is being played at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur. There has been one previous T20 international here which was high scoring between Sri Lanka and India.
We’ve seen in the One Day Internationals that have been held here that the wicket is good for batting. Quite often scores over 300 have been recorded but that doesn’t mean we’ve seen a number of sixes as the boundaries here are fairly big but with a fast outfield we can expect plenty of runs in this one.
I’m interested to see how this one plays out. I’ve a sneaky feeling that Hong Kong might well keep this one close. I think if it is a close match Zimbabwe might well get over the line. In Hamilton Masakadza they have the standout player on the park but if he goes cheaply Hong Kong will be right in the game.
That said I’m not completely sure I trust Hong Kong’s batting to stand up as a unit and with that in mind I’m going to side for under 10 sixes here. When India and Sri Lanka met in a T20 here in 2009 215/5 played 186/9 and there were only 10 sixes despite the power that was on display.
I think we can quite confidently say that we’re not going to see scoring like that in this match. It is all about winning for Zimbabwe while Hong Kong as a rule don’t hit big. They only hit two sixes in their two warm up matches for example and that isn’t unique they just generally play with precision rather than power.
I think Zimbabwe’s bowling is good enough to keep Hong Kong quiet and Hong Kong rarely get smashed around the park especially in these conditions so I don’t see 10 sixes in this one.
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