New Zealand levelled up their ODI series with South Africa in Christchurch on Wednesday so both sides go into the third match in Wellington on Saturday with the series nicely poised at 1-1. That makes the upcoming match huge in terms of the series as the winners will obviously go one up with two to play.
New Zealand
It took a while but finally the New Zealand batting line up came out to play like we know it can in Christchurch. In saying that a score of 289 was only par for the modern one day game but there is no doubt it will have given them confidence and a platform to build from and the good thing is they know there is more to come with Tom Latham and Neil Broom having offered little in the series to date.
That will all be music to the ears of the Kiwi bowlers who have been performing well for a while and who successfully defended that par score in Christchurch to set up an exciting conclusion to this series. Having seven bowling options in the last game did wonders for New Zealand and it will be interesting to see if they go in with that again.
South Africa
The unbeaten run ended at 12 matches in this format for South Africa but what a run it was. Unfortunately for them everything that they built their success on failed to materialise in the last match and they could never recover into a position where they were on top in the match so they need to get back to doing what they do.
That is build a big platform with the bat with someone going on to make the big score needed to propel a total. That isn’t a given though against a New Zealand bowling attack which is one of the best around. The other thing they need to do is make sure they get the squeeze back on in the middle overs and taking wickets again.
Team News
New Zealand have been mulling over the idea of bringing Luke Ronchi back for Tom Latham who has lost all his form. Kane Williamson would probably go up to open. It remains to be seen if they play both spinners.
South Africa have confirmed that Kagiso Rabada is available after the seamer missed the previous match. David Miller’s fitness confirmation has gone quiet so he may be unavailable again.
Westpac Stadium
There have been 28 previous ODIs held at this multi-purpose stadium. New Zealand have played in 26 of them with 16 wins and eight defeats along with a couple of no results. South Africa have won two of their three matches on this ground.
The venue is primarily a rugby ground so the boundaries are on the short side once again. That isn’t to the extent that Eden Park in Auckland is but there isn’t too much difference. With that in mind the scores here are generally on the high side barring the odd anomaly.
Betting
I guess after the last match there is an argument to be made that New Zealand are decent value in this one but I’m not one for betting on the match outcome on this ground without prior knowledge of the toss result.
I do expect a high scoring match though and given the size of these boundaries I do expect them to be peppered throughout. Both sides look to lay platforms but that doesn’t mean they don’t hit boundaries in the process but if the platforms are built well then the boundaries will really come in the second half of both innings.
I’m expecting a 300+ plays 300+ sort of match here and if we get that I’m confident we will see many more than 61.5 boundaries.
Tips
Back Over 61.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
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