The ongoing Test series between New Zealand and England continues on Friday, or Thursday night over here in the UK, when the two sides head to Wellington for the second match of the scheduled three games.
England won the opener and have the first chance of two to win the series here. New Zealand might have been caught a little cold in that first game and will be out to win here and force a decider in Hamilton next week.
New Zealand
The ups and downs of sport have been perfectly highlighted by New Zealand in the last few weeks. After the highs of their series win in India not too long ago, they were brought back down to earth with a bit of a bump in the opening match of the three games they have scheduled here. They were never really in the match at Christchurch so they will be looking for a much more complete performance here to give them a chance of forcing the decider.
The obvious thing that they will need to improve on is their fielding. They put down a ridiculous amount of catches in the opening game and that is so unlike New Zealand as they usually do the basics very well. In the end it cost them although their inability to bowl anything that Harry Brook didn’t smack out of the park was not exactly helpful. A better effort all round in the field should have them competitive here as you would expect their batting to naturally improve.
England
When you consider that England generally have an ordinary record in the initial parts of a series overseas, they will be delighted with how the first game went but they will know that they will probably need to find some improvement if they are going to stay in front in the series. The good thing for England is that they can control things from here, although their intention to put time back into matches and take the draw out of play means they are likely to have to find another win if they want to claim the series.
England will be particularly pleased with how they bowled in the opening match. They were helped by winning the toss and getting to bowl on a pitch which was fairly green to start off with but just because that opportunity was given to them, they still had to make the most of it and they did just that. If there is a criticism or a room for improvement it comes at the top of the order but you get the feeling that will come naturally so England are in a good place.
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Team News
Both teams have already named their XI for this match and New Zealand have surprisingly gone with an unchanged side for this second game. There was a school of thought that a spinner would come into the side but that isn’t the case.
It is less of a surprise that England have also named an unchanged XI for this match. They were only really going to change things if they wanted to rotate the bowlers but that might come in the last game should they have the series wrapped up.
Betting
All the talk is that this wicket is going to be full of runs from the second day onwards once the moisture and the tinge of green that is always left on the pitches in New Zealand to ensure they last the five days disappear. The trend in the opening game was the longer the match went on the better it was for batting and runs came fairly comfortable in the second and third innings of the match. I don’t really expect too much of a difference in this encounter.
The run line for this match is down at 1024.5 for this one and when you consider that there were 1205 runs in the first game and England were only two down when they got to the target, there is a lot more to come here. The first innings might be a bit of a struggle but there is more than enough in these sides to score 400 apiece in the second and third digs and if they do that then we will be pretty much guaranteed the over to land in this one. I think this line is very much on the low side.
Tips
Back Over 1024.5 runs for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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