New Zealand conclude their tour of Ireland with three T20s in Belfast and the first of those comes around on Monday when the two sides meet to continue their preparations for a T20 World Cup which is getting ever nearer.
Both these teams will be heading to Australia to take part in that tournament. Ireland enter before New Zealand so they will need all the preparation they can get but this is a chance for potential squad members of both nations to stake their claim.
Ireland
The Irish showed in the ODI matches that they can compete with this New Zealand side. They didn’t get over the line in any of the games but they could easily have won all three if the luck had gone their way at the right times. After a disappointing T20 World Cup in the UAE last term, Ireland will be eager to build up a book of form which sees them carrying confidence into the upcoming competition in Australia and if they can see off New Zealand that would do their morale the world of good.
We certainly saw that Ireland can put up enough runs to give this New Zealand side a good test. In the ODIs they twice made 300 and will have been disappointed not to win those matches. The reason why they didn’t was because their bowling was found out and that is the area of the game which needs a bit of improvement if they are going to take this opening match. They pushed India close in the second T20 a couple of weeks ago too so Ireland are going in the right direction.
New Zealand
I would imagine that having been the beaten finalists in the UAE last year, New Zealand will be making the short trip to Australia later in the year intending to win the T20 World Cup. A number of their players were at the Indian Premier League earlier in the season and some of those who weren’t have been playing in the Vitality Blast so their players have certainly got no excuses on the game time and familiarity to the format.
Their batting in this entire tour has been questionable until that final ODI when the shackles finally came off and their key players were able to show what they can do. They will hope to do likewise here in the format which allows them to go on the attack from the off which suits their style. Some key bowlers are missing this leg of the tour but that offers up a chance for the fringe players to show what they can do ahead of the T20 World Cup.
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Team News
Mark Adair sat out the last ODI and he could well return for Ireland in this match. Barry McCarthy has been included in the squad and he is another who could feature here. Curtis Campher will hope to be involved after missing the India T20s.
New Zealand are resting both Kane Williamson and Tom Latham for this series so Mitchell Santner will skipper the side. Daryl Mitchell and Jimmy Neesham join the squad for the T20s but Adam Milne has withdrawn through injury.
Betting
With the exception of the second match when there was morning rain which had made an impact to conditions, the ODI series was largely high scoring between these two and I see no reason why the T20 series won’t follow suit. New Zealand have brought a bit of firepower into their batting unit to replace those who struggled in the ODIs but they are without arguably their entire first-choice seam line up which will give the Irish batters some respite.
We saw in the ODI series that Ireland really struggled with the ball the longer that the innings went on and in two of those matches they were bowling at lower order players whereas in the second half of this innings they’ll be bowling at specialist finishers or top order players so you would imagine the trend of them going the distance at the death will continue. Ireland put the India attack to the sword in a T20 a couple of weeks ago so there is every reason to think we’ll go beyond 318.5 runs here.
Tips
Back Over 318.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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