After another heavy defeat in Dharamsala on Sunday, New Zealand will head to Delhi on Thursday looking to get a foothold in their tour of India when they compete in the second ODI of five.
After three ultimately comfortable wins in the Test series and another in the opening ODI, India have their opponents just where they want them and a win here would move them to the brink of another series success. NZ need to win to keep their hopes of winning the series realistic.
India
A brilliant bowling performance in the opening ODI paved the way to success for the home side in Dharamsala and that was a big thing because that was very much the weakest part of their game heading into the series. Of course one swallow doesn’t make a summer so they will need to back that up with another performance of quality here.
We come to expect India to cope strongly when it comes to having the bat in their hand but when Virat Kohli is in the sort of form he is currently in then runs are almost a given. He isn’t the only one who contributes though which makes India very much a tough nut to crack.
New Zealand
I would imagine New Zealand will have put that first game to bed pretty quickly. From an early stage they were never going to win it but they can take some pride from the way they battled from 65-7 up to something remotely competitive and then whittled away to get four wickets with the ball in what was always going to be a comfortable run chase.
The Kiwis have had four days to get their heads around what went wrong in the mountains and to have worked on that and put things right and I’m expecting a stronger performance from them here especially with the bat. We know whatever happens they will keep going and that is no bad thing.
Team News
India are expected to be without Suresh Raina once again as he continues to recover from a virus he has had. It would be a surprise after such a good performance if India makes any changes in this match.
New Zealand are expected to make changes although as seems to so often be the case when they fail to score runs they are going to change the bowling attack! Matt Henry is expected to come in but if they did want to change the batting line up then they have BJ Watling and Anton Devcich in reserve.
Feroz Shah Kotla
There have been 23 ODIs on this ground with 22 of them yielding a positive result. India have played in 18 matches here and have 12 wins and five defeats with a no result. New Zealand have lost both matches they have played here but they’ve not featured on this ground since 1999.
This is one of the lower scoring grounds in the country with only two scores of over 300 in the 23 matches played here and one of those was when the West Indies met the Netherlands in what was a bit of a mismatch. The seamers are usually in play here but the batsmen to get full value for their shots with a smallish ground and a quick outfield.
Betting
I’ve a feeling New Zealand will come back into the series here but that is only a gut feeling as we’ve certainly not seen anything from them to suggest that will be the case. I will resist the temptation to back them and instead play cautiously and go with just one for the match.
That comes in one of the side markets which revolves around Virat Kohli. Kohli’s total fours line is 3.5 and that looks very low to me. He has covered this total in five of his last six ODI innings and he has scores of 112 and 62 in his four matches here which have both covered this line. When you factor in the double century he made in the final Test, Kohli is in excellent form and any sort of innings is likely to include four boundaries.
Tips
Back V.Kohli – Over 3.5 fours for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
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