The swift T20 international series between India and New Zealand draws to a close on Sunday when the two nations move to Eden Gardens in Kolkata for the final match of a series which India have already sewn up after their opening two wins.
That means they go into this final match looking to complete a clean sweep and start the Rohit Sharna/Rahul Dravid era in the best possible way. There are Test matches to come so New Zealand will be eager to take something from the series into those.
India
It was a much better performance from India in the second match of the series than the opening one. You would expect that as they had to adjust to conditions and the change in leadership and things like that. The other thing we have to allow for is that they have chosen to rest some key players for this series after a hard tournament and with a bunch of cricket to play so all in all they will be pretty content with where they are.
India have won both matches with a good end to their bowling effort. It helps that the opposition haven’t got the deepest batting unit but you can only do what you can do and their bowlers have performed very well at the death. That has given them the momentum to get off to good starts with the bat with New Zealand searching for wickets and in the end they have cruised over the line in both the matches so far. Batting second has certainly helped too.
New Zealand
You have to make allowances for New Zealand here I think. We shouldn’t forget that it is only a week ago today they were losing in a huge T20 World Cup final and I would imagine the early stages of this series was a hangover of that. I don’t think they have been particularly bad in this series but twice they have been given a good platform to go and build a gigantic score and they have failed to maximise their efforts on both occasions, which will have disappointed them.
It is hard to judge them too much with the ball. They haven’t been good enough but they have been bowling in dewy conditions and we know that is never easy. They could either do with winning a toss and getting to bat first or they have to take a risk or two more at the end of the innings to get the extra 20-25 runs which would make them very competitive. They have a lot of cricket coming up and the next T20 World Cup is only 11 months away so this is a dead rubber for the Kiwis in name only.
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Team News
Ruturaj Gaikwad and Avesh Khan both had good Indian Premier League campaigns and with the series won they might well get the chance to show what they can do on the international stage. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Suryakumar Yadav could be the men to sit out.
New Zealand made their changes for the opening match of the series where their fringe players left a bit to be desired. I would imagine they will go in with a similar side to the one which played the second game but with an emphasis on even more aggression with the bat.
Betting
Eden Gardens will be a familiar venue to these two sides. India play here quite a bit and New Zealand have enough players who have played in the Indian Premier League who will know all about this ground. This is another match in which betting on the outcome isn’t an easy proposition because of the dew that comes in here and this time the ground is tiny in certain spots as well so I definitely wouldn’t want to be on the team who bats first.
With that in mind, I’ll head to the side markets for a bet on the contest and the one which interests me here is the sixes, where the line is very small at 11.5 when you consider that on bigger grounds than this we have had 12 and 14 sixes in the two matches so far. New Zealand have only really batted for 16 overs in their two innings and haven’t put up a sizable score in those matches either. With key bowlers likely to be given the day off the batters should get the chance to shine and I like over 11.5 sixes here.
Tips
Back Over 11.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Coral
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