In truth, the eagerly awaited Test series between Australia and New Zealand has been something of a damp squib thus far, but the two sides have one last chance to deliver a competitive contest when the third and final Test begins in Sydney in the late hours of Thursday evening in the UK.
Australia have already won the series but a series whitewash offers up some incentive for them in this outing, while New Zealand won’t want to leave the shores of their rivals without at least offering up a competitive display, and preferably a win.
Australia
The ability of their opponents is one thing but it is hard to argue that Australia have not put in two near perfect displays. If you were to put together the ideal Test match it would be to score 400 in the first innings, bowl the opposition out cheaply and completely control things from there and that is exactly what Australia have done in both Perth and Melbourne. Their task now is to maintain that intensity in a game which offers little other than World Test Championship points.
The big advantage Australia have heading into this final match is the quality of their bowling attack, and actually when you look at the Big Bash, although it is a different format, they have a queue of bowlers who could come into the side and not really dent the quality of it. That said, they have three of the best seamers in the world and one of the most underrated spinners of recent times. Another positive is a couple of players outside the top four being among the runs too.
New Zealand
It has been a disaster of a tour for New Zealand so far and while winning this match won’t change that, it will at least offer up a little more confidence as they head into a series with India a little later in the year. They will also bank some World Test Championship points with a victory, but you would have to suggest that based on what we have seen in the first two games, it would take quite some turnaround for the Kiwis to win this one.
If that improvement is to take place then their batsmen are going to need to not just deliver better quality, but they are going to have to show some much stronger resistance, albeit we know that won’t be easy. The other issue New Zealand have is getting stuck into this Australia batting line up and given that they are missing their best bowler here, this could be another long five days, or however long they can last for.
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Team News
The Australian media have spoken about changes being made for this match, and the addition of Mitch Swepson to the squad probably only fuelled that talk, but I’m not convinced we’ll see any unless they want to rest a seamer with the smoke damaging the air quality in Sydney.
New Zealand will be forced into one change with Trent Boult ruled out of the match. Kane Williamson and Henry Nicholls are doubts with illness as well which is not ideal. Will Somerville is being touted as someone who could come in.
Sydney Cricket Ground
There have been 107 previous Test matches at the Sydney Cricket Ground and once again Australia have a pretty decent record with 59 wins to just 28 losses and 20 draws. It is quite incredible given the local proximity of the two nations that New Zealand have only played two Test matches on this ground, winning one and drawing the other. You wouldn’t think conditions here suit New Zealand.
Generally this is a decent batting track for the first day or two but then the spinner comes into play here more than on any other ground in Australia, which could be key given on what we’ve seen so far in this series in particular. Rain is forecast for the last two days of the match and before then there are fears that the smoke will make a bit of an impact like we’ve seen in the Big Bash so that needs to be factored into bets.
Betting
I’m already on Australia to win this match courtesy of backing them to win the series 3-0 before a ball was bowled in it so the 2/1 on my betting slip there more than accounts for enough interest here, but I will attack one of the side markets which involves a player I took in the opening Test match of the series in the form of Nathan Lyon.
I took the performance of Lyon in Perth and he covered accordingly and although his line has gone up to 110.5 here I still think on his home ground he will cover this total. He has scored 138 points in the opening match in this series and 91 in Melbourne where he never scored in the first bowling innings so there is a lot more to come from him on a pitch which takes spin and which he knows so well. The over on his performance can land in my eyes.
Tips
WON – Back N.Lyon’s Performance – Over 110.5pts for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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