The T20 series between New Zealand and Pakistan is reaching the business end and the fourth game of the five takes place in Mount Maunganui on Sunday with the hosts looking for a series win and the tourists aiming to set up a decider.
New Zealand have already passed up one chance to win the series and they will be looking to get it done here and avoid going to a deciding game whereas Pakistan have got their tails up and would love to set up a decider in Wellington on Wednesday.
New Zealand
You could say that New Zealand passed up a chance to win the series in Auckland but they will know that you are miles behind the game the second you bat first at Eden Park and so it proved. They put up a competitive score in the match but it wasn’t one that was a winning score unless their bowlers could get stuck into the Pakistan top order, much like they had in the first two games, albeit when New Zealand were bowling first.
They couldn’t get those wickets and in the end the bowling unravelled quite quickly in a face of some real pressure from the Pakistan batters. The Kiwi bowlers in this series are largely second string ones so we can excuse them from feeling the pressure when it was applied but now they have been in that situation it will be interesting to see how they cope with it should that situation arise a second time. The good thing is New Zealand look strong with the bat.
Pakistan
After taking a huge beating and an unfortunate loss in the opening two matches, with their backs firmly against the wall in Auckland you have to give a lot of credit to Pakistan for bouncing back strongly and keeping the series alive. We hinted that their best chance at the minute is to be chasing a score as it is much easier to gauge how aggressive and/or reckless you need to be when you know what the target is and we saw that at Eden Park.
Although it was the batters that got all of the attention in Auckland, there is certainly a case to be made that it was the bowlers who should have got the plaudits because they kept New Zealand to just over 200 which at Eden Park is very much only par and their batters were able to make short work of that target. A repeat of that bowling effort here would be very much appreciated and it could see Pakistan setting up a decider.
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Team News
New Zealand were hoping to have Matt Henry available for the final two matches of this series but he is still struggling with the injury which kept him out of the Champions Trophy final so Zak Foulkes remains with the squad.
Pakistan made changes for the third match of the series and they had the desired effect. Such was the emphatic nature of their victory it would only be a late injury or illness which would see them change their side here.
Betting
I was all for a high scoring match in the last game but when you consider the ground dimensions and the fact that only one New Zealand player really caught fire it wasn’t all that high scoring for Eden Park. I don’t expect one particularly high here at Mount Maunganui on what is a much bigger ground but we are back to the sort of pitches that we had in the opening two games where the Pakistan batters struggled for the most part.
I’m not convinced either of these two batting units are firing on all cylinders and with the Pakistan bowlers starting to get up to speed and the New Zealand spinners on a ground where they can use all of their variations with this outfield being pretty big, I don’t see a 340.5 line being covered. Pakistan are going to continue with their high risk approach which can lead to falling in a heap but New Zealand’s batting still has a question or two about it. I’ll play the under here.
Tips
Back Under 340.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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