The T20 series between New Zealand and Pakistan comes to a close in Wellington on Wednesday when the teams meet for the fifth and final time in the shortest format of the game with attentions beginning to head towards the ODIs which follow.
That is because New Zealand have won the series with a match to spare courtesy of their win over Pakistan in Mount Maunganui. That reduces this to a dead rubber with form going into the ODIs all that is on the line here.
New Zealand
I would imagine that New Zealand would be delighted to have won this series with a match to spare when you consider the amount of top quality personnel that they are missing to the Indian Premier League. With the exception of a few overs in their bowling innings in Auckland, you would have to say that they have dominated this series and will be looking to do that once more here and really open up their depth pool ahead of the T20 World Cup next year.
The key for New Zealand in this series has been how well they have bowled. In three of the four matches they have got stuck into Pakistan with the new ball and when they have had their opponents where they have wanted them they haven’t relented. One more effort like that will give them every chance of securing a 4-1 victory, especially with their batters looking like they are getting better with every match that they play.
Pakistan
This clearly hasn’t been the series that Pakistan wanted. They arrived in New Zealand with a new era to begin with some aggressive, fearless, freed up cricket but that plan has fallen on its face in spectacular fashion and it would be to the surprise of nobody if there aren’t repercussions of that when they get back home. Before then though they have a game without any competitive pressures on them at all to show that when they preach they can deliver.
The big guns will be back for the ODI series later in the week so this is the last chance for the T20 style batters to come to the party and show that they can be the men to take this team towards the T20 World Cup next year. There has been the odd decent individual effort along the way but no real cohesive batting performance. The bowlers have done as well as they can but in three of the four matches they haven’t been supported by the batters.
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Team News
There were suggestions at the beginning of the series that New Zealand would make changes for this final T20 ahead of the ODI matches but injuries haven’t cleared up and Kyle Jamieson has gone down so it might be that they are unchanged here.
Big names generally rule the roost in Pakistan cricket and with Shahid Afridi calling for Shadab Khan and Shaheen Afridi to be rested you would imagine changes will take place. Mohammad Ali and Usman Khan could be players to come in.
Betting
The Cake Tin in Wellington isn’t quite as small as Eden Park but it isn’t a great deal bigger so the obvious bet in a dead rubber with no competitive pressure on either batting unit is the sixes. I’m a little surprised based on what we’ve seen so far that the line for this match is as low as 15.5. This line has been covered in the last three matches of this series even though Pakistan made a hash of the run chase in the last game in Mount Maunganui.
This is in essence a rugby ground and that showed when there were 30 sixes here in a T20 between New Zealand and Australia last year. Pakistan have no reason not to continue to apply their aggressive style in this match because there is no consequences on them making a mess up of it, not that it will be easy to do that in these conditions. New Zealand have clobbered this Pakistan attack all series and I don’t see that changing here so I like over 15.5 sixes in this one.
Tips
Back Over 15.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
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