The busy winter of cricket for New Zealand and India continues on Wednesday when the two sides begin a five match ODI series, which not only gets India’s tour underway but also acts as further preparation for the upcoming World Cup.
The Indians head to New Zealand off the back of dominating Australia for the last couple of months. New Zealand overpowered Sri Lanka in all formats of the game too so we should have two confident teams on our hands here.
Schedule
1st ODI: Jan 23 at Napier
2nd ODI: Jan 26 at Mount Maunganui
3rd ODI: Jan 28 at Mount Maunganui
4th ODI: Jan 31 at Hamilton
5th ODI: Feb 3 at Wellington
New Zealand
The Kiwis did not play too much in this format of the game in 2018. They only played three series in all, beating Pakistan at the beginning of it before losing to England and then later in the year they drew with Pakistan. They have begun 2019 strongly though with three emphatic wins over Sri Lanka to kick off what they hope will be a big year in style.
The encouraging thing for New Zealand in those matches against Sri Lanka was how well they batted. It would be right to point out that their batsmen will have a tougher test in this series but there is no reason to believe they won’t stand up to the challenge. If they do, we know the Kiwis have all the bowling resources necessary to come out on top, especially in these conditions.
India
Since the Champions Trophy 18 months ago, India have played nine ODI series and the only one they have lost was in England last summer. In that time they have also won the Asia Cup too so they are a team in form and very much the one to beat not just in this series, but also when the World Cup comes around later in the year.
They haven’t been completely perfect in recent times. They dropped a match with a sloppy performance against the West Indies towards the end of 2018 and slipped up in the first ODI against Australia last week before turning the series around. India have become heavily reliant on their top four recently and it will be interesting to see if they can deliver the goods in this series, or whether they need someone to stand up down the order.
Head to Head
These two nations have played out 13 bilateral series in the past and as you would expect it is India who have had the better of them. They have won seven of those series and lost just four of them with a couple of drawn series too. It is a different story in New Zealand though where India have just one series win in seven attempts with the Kiwis coming out on top in four and those two draws also being in New Zealand.
India have played 30 ODIs in bilateral series in New Zealand and have only won nine of them so they are susceptible in this part of the world it would appear. New Zealand have 18 wins from those matches so if history is anything to go by then they could be the favourites to win this series.
[the_ad_group id=”3624″]
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets across the course of the series. I really think New Zealand have a chance of landing the spoils here. As I highlighted above, I suspect India are coming towards the end of their lifespan away from home in this spell and I would wager if you asked them this would be a series they could do without. New Zealand don’t have that problem of course and while it was only Sri Lanka, they looked very promising in that series. The Kiwis are laced with good bowlers and not short in the batting department. At 7/4 I’ll have a small flutter on them to take the spoils.
Ross Taylor has been in amazing form in ODIs in recent times. Since the first day of last year he has averaged 92 in this format of the game with three tons and five more 50s in just 13 innings. That includes 137 in the final ODI against Sri Lanka earlier in the month so the veteran batsman could not be in any better form heading into this series. He has a decent enough record against India too with two tons and a 90 in his last 10 knocks against them so all things being equal I’ve got to think he is a fair bet at 7/2 to lead the Kiwi run scoring here.
Tips
Back New Zealand to win ODI series for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with William Hill
Back them here:
Back R.Taylor Top New Zealand Series Batsman for a 2/10 stake at 4.50 with Betfair
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2019
