The third set of matches begin at the ICC Cricket World Cup on Friday when the tournament heads back to Chennai as New Zealand look to maintain their undefeated start to their campaign when they go up against Bangladesh.
New Zealand have made a very strong start to their tournament and would be more than on track for a place in the semi-final should they win this match. Bangladesh can boost their own hopes of reaching that stage with a win here.
New Zealand
I think going into the tournament there were one or two doubters over the New Zealand credentials in it. I don’t think anyone had any issues with their global competition record which is as strong as any team over the last decade or so, but whether one or two too many injuries were hitting their camp was certainly an issue. With that in mind, they will be delighted to have won their opening two matches and given themselves a real good platform to build on.
New Zealand took advantage of a terrible England performance to get off the mark in the tournament and then they did what they had to do when the Netherlands were their opposition. You could argue they haven’t really faced anything in the tournament yet but you can only beat what is in front of you. Players are beginning to come back from injury so New Zealand really should be taken seriously from here.
Bangladesh
We are not yet at the stage where Bangladesh can be taken seriously in terms of being challengers for a place in the semi-final but should they polish off a good looking New Zealand side, in conditions it has to be said which should be favourable for the Tigers, then that conversation will need to change. They will probably need their best performance of the competition so far in order to get that win but it certainly isn’t beyond them.
I think we can be fairly safe in assuming that we will see a much better bowling display from Bangladesh in these conditions than we saw from them against England last time out. That will leave the big question of whether they will be able to deliver a good batting showing. We haven’t really seen one of them from them in quite a while but they have a settled order and a pitch which should be slow enough to negate the seam bowling so Bangladesh should be quietly confident heading into this one.
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Team News
New Zealand captain Kane Williamson has confirmed he will make his long awaited return from injury in this match. It has not been clarified who he will come in for but Mark Chapman feels the most vulnerable. Ish Sodhi could well come in for Lockie Ferguson too.
Bangladesh haven’t been able to find an opening combination so it might be that Tanzid Hasan makes way for Mahmudullah with Mehidy Hasan Miraz moving up the order to open the batting which he did in the Asia Cup.
Betting
In the previous Bangladesh match I took them to hit under 24.5 boundaries and they didn’t cover that line. The line has only gone down by one even though they are up against what is for me a better bowling unit in these conditions and most definitely on a ground where hitting boundaries isn’t easy. Australia and India played here in the only other match at this venue so far. Australia batted first and hit 18 boundaries before being bowled out with three balls left of their innings. In the run chase India hit 17 boundaries. It isn’t an easy ground to hit them on.
That tempts me to take under 52.5 boundaries for the match but I don’t want to run into another shabby Bangladesh bowling performance here, which I don’t think will happen but I still don’t want to take the chance. Bangladesh have played on a better wicket in Dharamsala which is probably smaller than Chennai in size and hit 14 and 20 boundaries. It has been a while since Bangladesh have convinced with the bat and I’m not sure they’ll get much joy against this New Zealand attack. I’ll play the under on their boundary line.
Tips
Back Bangladesh – Under 23.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
Back them here:
