Bangladesh begin their white ball tour of New Zealand on Saturday, or Friday night for those of us who are in the UK, when the two sides meet in the first of three ODIs in Dunedin in what should be a very appealing match.
As with the other ODI series which have gone on in recent times, this one carries World Cup qualifying points with it so that should add to the competitiveness of two sides who have the potential to be among the best in 50 over cricket.
New Zealand
Quite amazingly this will be just the fifth ODI that New Zealand will have played since being beaten in the World Cup final in 2019. That is four months short of two years. It will also be the first ODI they have played since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic so they are entitled to be a little rusty in terms of the nuances the format demands, but they have been playing a lot of T20 cricket in recent times so there should be no excuses against the white ball.
New Zealand are incredibly strong in this format of the game. They don’t go about pounding 350-400 every innings like England do but they don’t need to because they have a bowling attack which is of a high quality. That is slightly different in terms of the scores they get in this part of the world with the smaller grounds and things but in the main they play a largely old school approach but it comes with a maximum effect.
Bangladesh
Bangladesh have been improvers in this format since they made the quarter finals of the 2015 World Cup. Although they didn’t reach the knockout stages of the 2019 tournament they gave a good account of themselves and continue to do so whenever they play this format of the game. There was a time when Bangladesh would appear in this part of the world, or anywhere outside of Asia, and be found wanting but that isn’t the case any longer.
That was all down to them not having a seam attack that allows them to be competitive but over time they have gone about getting some good pace options into their armoury and that, combined with their solid spin options, keeps them in the game. They have a very good and deep batting line up who were often underrated, although their success of the last few years means they now get the respect that they deserve.
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Team News
New Zealand will be without their heavyweight batsmen Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor for this series. Tom Latham will skipper the side while the likes of Devon Conway and Daryl Mitchell will come into the side. Jimmy Neesham is expected to get the all-rounder slot.
Bangladesh are also missing a star name. They will be without Shakib-al-Hasan and there is a doubt over Mossaddek Hossain as well. If he isn’t fit to feature then Mohammad Mithun could be the one to capitalise in his absence.
Betting
This will be an interesting series with all the changes being made to the two sides but with World Cup qualifying points at stake it shouldn’t lose any of its competitiveness. I will largely sit and watch how the two sides play this thing so I’m going to keep my bets for this opening game to a minimum and I’m certainly not getting involved in the match betting, although something tells me that Bangladesh might be overpriced at 5/1.
We’ve had the benefit of seeing a match on this ground recently and albeit it was a T20 match we saw that the wicket played brilliantly and we knew that the ground was small anyway. In that match between New Zealand and Australia, 219 was nearly not enough batting first which suggests to me we will see a high scoring match here, especially with Bangladesh playing a deep batting line up. Two ODIs ago here 335 wasn’t enough batting first and in total four of the 10 first innings here have been over 300. That makes me think the 510.5 runs line for this match is a fair bit on the low side. I’ll take the over.
Tips
Back Over 510.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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