India and New Zealand meet in the second ODI of the three on the schedule in Raipur on Saturday in a match which if it is half as good as their opening game will be a fantastic spectacle for everyone watching on the enjoy.
India won an epic contest to get the series off to a winning start so New Zealand will have to win this match in order to take it to a decider. That is the context to the match but really this is about continuing early preparations for the World Cup later in the year for both teams.
India
Usually in the first game of a series you accept a team not quite being at their best but that wasn’t the case with India here because they have been playing white ball cricket against Sri Lanka for much of the month. That served them well because they were able to hit the ground running and while they were given an almighty scare, they will know that they offered up a decent performance against a good opponent in a good game of cricket.
India will be disappointed with how they bowled in the second half of their innings but sometimes you have to tip your hat to an opponent who goes well. The one thing India will be pleased with is the way they batted to put up a sizeable total on a big ground albeit with accessible boundaries. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by the struggles in the latter part of the bowling innings as it has been a thing since Jasprit Bumrah was injured.
New Zealand
I guess when they got so close to winning the opening game New Zealand will be gutted to have lost it but I think when the emotions die down and they reflect on it in the cold light of day they will know they were well beaten and almost stole a win which overall they wouldn’t have deserved. What that first game did show us was the character that still exists within this New Zealand team even when one or two big stars are being rested.
They won’t need me to tell them that the New Zealand top order need to deliver the goods better than they did in that opening game. The positive for New Zealand is they were in this same position in Pakistan recently and they got together and turned that series around and if their top order does fire a little more then they know the lower order will be able to push them on and maybe get them over the line. New Zealand could do with early wickets too just to keep the India batting in check.
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Team News
India are likely to give their bowlers the chance to show that they can control the middle overs and name an unchanged side unless there is a late injury or illness which wasn’t diagnosed ahead of the contest.
New Zealand are keeping an eye on the fitness of Ish Sodhi after he missed the opening game with an ankle injury. If he is fit he could come into the side potentially at the expense of Henry Shipley given that both spinners went well in the opening match.
Betting
This will be the first time Raipur has staged international cricket and a sold out crowd is expected so this is clearly a huge occasion for everyone involved. That usually guarantees a decent pitch and when you consider what we just saw in Hyderabad it would be a surprise if we don’t get a high scoring match here. We might not get one quite as high as we got in Hyderabad but I still expect runs and boundaries to flow throughout.
I think one of the reasons for that is the India attack doesn’t look half as good without Jasprit Bumrah and even the absences of the likes of Axar Patel, Ravi Jadeja and Bhuvneshwar Kumar are having an impact. New Zealand will give it a good go but their attack is blunted on these docile Indian wickets so I’m expecting the batters to have joy again. We saw 90 boundaries in Hyderabad and in places that is a big ground. We have a boundaries line of 62.5 in this match and I like the over once again.
Tips
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