England head into their second match of the Champions Trophy against New Zealand in Cardiff on Tuesday knowing that after Monday’s washout if they win the match they are into the knockout stages with a match to spare.
New Zealand know that they will be in a favourable position to qualify should they come out on top in the Cardiff clash so we are all set for a very competitive game of cricket.
England
Quite often sides who go into tournaments of this kind as favourites, especially when they are at home, tighten up and fail to perform to expectation but that wasn’t the case for England in their opening match. If you wanted to you could argue they didn’t really face much but it was still a very solid starter.
It would be wrong to suggest there isn’t room to improve on that performance but very rarely would a side be at their best in their opening match. England can bowl better and I would imagine they will make the necessary changes to allow them to do so but there was much more to come with the bat which will provide confidence.
New Zealand
The Kiwis will probably be aggrieved after their opening match of the competition as all they have to show for a pretty dominant performance against Australia was a solitary point after rain beat the pair of them. While the outcome will have disappointed them their performance certainly wouldn’t have done.
They batted with quality and authority against a pretty crash hot Australian bowling attack and then when it came to bowling themselves they did so with plenty of aggression. If there was a disappointment it would have been the end to their batting innings and that is something they need to address going forward.
Team News
England surprisingly left out Adil Rashid in the first match but he isn’t expected to miss out twice. He is likely to come in for Jake Ball. Jonny Bairstow is set to remain on the side with Jason Roy given another chance. David Willey is the obvious replacement for Chris Woakes.
New Zealand are expected to name the same side as the one they went into battle with against Australia which means no place for Jeetan Patel once again.
[the_ad_group id=”3624″]
Betting
I think England will win this match but it probably isn’t wise to ignore New Zealand’s excellent tournament record against them. This is a different England side to previous ones though but even then they are a little short for my liking.
I’m not expecting many sixes in this match. Both sides are likely to bowl a number of seamers and I would expect to see plenty of back of a length and short balls where the batsmen have to hit into the extremely long square boundaries. With the wet and windy conditions that have plagued the UK and the early morning start you would think there will be early wickets in this match which won’t help the six hitting. A 10.5 line looks high here given the conditions.
I would expect early wickets to fall in both innings here so it could be worth chancing someone in the middle order to pick up the pieces and top score. Jos Buttler has a century against New Zealand to his name and he is one man who wherever the Kiwis bowl to him he’ll invent something to attack the short straight boundaries. Buttler has two 50s on this ground in ODI cricket and at 17/2 he looks overpriced for a top score here.
Tips
Back Under 10.5 sixes for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfair
Back it here:
Back J.Buttler Top England Batsman for a 1/10 stake at 9.50 with Paddy Power
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2017
