As with the ODI series, the T20 battle between India and New Zealand has gone down to a deciding match which takes place in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday. India won the 50 over finale so New Zealand will be eager to get their own series win here.
India won the opening match of the T20s but New Zealand levelled impressively at the weekend so there is all to play for in this deciding match before the Kiwis depart for their own summer.
India
After such an emphatic win in the first game of the three, India will be most disappointed with their performance in the second game in which they were never ever truly in with a chance of winning the game. They didn’t bat great, they certainly didn’t bowl particularly well and they fielded horrendously so they need a marked improvement here.
They are a proud bunch are the Indians and they hate to lose any series in any format and especially at home so we can expect them to be right on their game here. We saw in that opening match that they have the personnel to get the better of New Zealand and a repeat of that performance should be enough for them.
New Zealand
After a horrible performance in the first match of the series, which might have been down to the agonising way they lost the ODI series, full credit must be given to New Zealand for the way they came back in the second match. There was an element of fortune about the win in the amount of catches India dropped but New Zealand were the better side.
That second game showed what I had been saying throughout about the series about the options at the disposal of the Kiwis. They were able to use Munro’s bowling which meant that had anyone been carted they had another option with de Grandhomme only delivering one over in the contest. That bodes well for them in this decider.
Team News
India may not want to dump Mohammad Siraj after just one outing but his figures were so bad that it might be worth dropping him for his own peace of mind. Kuldeep Yadav hasn’t seen much action lately and could be a good choice to replace him.
New Zealand surprisingly left the hero of the ODI series out in the last game in Tom Latham. If that was just to give him a break he could return here but they would be harsh to change a side which won so comfortably last time out.
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Betting
I took New Zealand to win the series prior to it beginning so I am effectively already on them to win this match at 9/4. Given that they are the ones in the box seat coming off the previous match I am happy to stay with my original prediction and let that ride.
In terms of a bet the talk is that a warm up match here a couple of weeks ago in preparation for this contest provided scores in the 180s and with the batting talent on show here I would be surprised if the scores are not at least that high if not a shade higher. Both first innings scores in the series to date have been more than 190 so I’m expecting to see the 337.5 run line safely covered.
Tips
VOID – Back Over 337.5 runs for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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