There is another double header of action in the Cricket T20 World Cup on Saturday. The first cricket match is a dead rubber as New Zealand have already qualified for the semi-finals and Bangladesh can no longer make them.
Bangladesh will probably still be wondering how they didn’t manage to beat India in their last match. Had they done that they would have gone into this one with their hopes still very much alive. I’m guessing now they could go one of two ways. They might come out flat as a pancake and still reeling from that crazy defeat or they will have fire in their bellies and come out fired up to put things right.
There has been no indications that Bangladesh will make changes for this match to give everyone a game in the tournament. With Taskin Ahmed and Arafat Sunny still suspended from bowling they probably don’t have a huge amount of options with them so maybe the same XI will get a chance to prove a point.
New Zealand have been exemplary so far in the tournament without ever catching fire with the bat. They’ve won all three of their matches to date and will win their group as a result of that and it must give them confidence that they should have even more to come when their batting gets on track.
It would make sense for the Kiwis to give Trent Boult and Tim Southee some game time in this match. Henry Nicholls could take one of the underperforming middle order players out of the firing line which Nathan McCullum could freshen things up if either Mitchell Santner or Ish Sodhi needs a rest.
We’re back at Eden Gardens for this match. New Zealand will hope this is the first of two matches they play here with the final being here next weekend. Bangladesh have already played here but won’t want to be reminded of the fact given that Pakistan gave them a bit of a beating in that game.
There are too many questions to answer for me to justify a bet on the match outcome here. All things being equal you would think New Zealand will continue their good record in the tournament but naturally that is priced accordingly.
I will take a couple of bets for this match though. The first one is the performance of Shakib-al-Hasan. This market has already served me well with this player in this tournament and I’m going in again on what is his IPL home ground.
He’ll be familiar to the conditions here both with the bat in his hand and the ball. He showed that in Bangladesh’s first outing here when he made an unbeaten 50 against Pakistan. Since then he has returned scores of 33 and 22 and figures of 3/27 and 1/23. Add into the mix his catching potential and I don’t see a line of 40 being high enough for the all-rounder here.
I’m also going to chance one in the Top New Zealand Batsman market where it would make sense for the Kiwis to send their middle order up the order a little bit and ensure they get some time in the middle in case they are needed in the knockout stage of the tournament.
That could see someone like Ross Taylor going up to three to get stuck in. He’s not done a lot in the tournament yet and could be a huge player when the pressure is on next week. It isn’t guaranteed that he’ll move up but the storyline is there should New Zealand want to go down that route.
He hasn’t been priced up with that likelihood in mind though so his 17/2 price has plenty of upturn. Even if he bats in the middle order he wouldn’t be out of the equation from a top scoring point of view so that is a punt worth taking a chance on.
Back S.al-Hasan’s Performance Pts – 40&Over for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
Back it here:
Back R.Taylor Top New Zealand Batsman for a 1/10 stake at 9.50 with Paddy Power
Back him here:
