South Africa begin their tour of New Zealand with a one off T20 international in Auckland on Friday. Both sides have been pretty active in recent times so this should be an extremely competitive encounter to begin what should be a cracking couple of months of cricket in Kiwi land.
With five ODIs to come after this both sides will be using this T20 international to gain a little bit of impetus and momentum to take into those.
New Zealand
The Kiwis have already seen off Bangladesh in a three match series this summer but without meaning to disrespect the Tigers I think it is fair to say that this will be a much tougher test for New Zealand. If this match is to set up the rest of the summer New Zealand will be out to be at their very best here.
One concern to come out of all of the limited overs matches New Zealand have played in recent times has been their batting line up. It has been out of form for too long and as the Champions Trophy gets ever nearer that is something they will be hoping improves to how we know they can play.
South Africa
The Proteas head to New Zealand off the back of losing their most recent T20 series at home to Sri Lanka. Their fans will be quick to point out that it was largely a second string side which took to the field in that series but given how dominant South Africa were in the other formats it would still have gone down as a disappointing loss.
This won’t be a weakened side. South Africa have brought all of their heavy artillery with them for this series both with the bat and the ball so there is little doubt that they mean business coming here. Against Sri Lanka there were just a few signs that their bowlers weren’t completely on song and it will be interesting to see if that changes here.
Team News
Martin Guptill has been ruled out of this T20 match which means that hard hitting Glenn Phillips will make his international debut. Ben Wheeler is expected to start too.
South Africa will leave it as late as possible to make a decision on the finger injury of David Miller which kept him out of the end of the ODI series against Sri Lanka. Ferhaan Behardien will play if Miller doesn’t make it.
Betting
I don’t think I need to repeat myself about Eden Park and the struggles that defending it brings so once again I’m not going to get involved in the match betting before we know the outcome of the toss.
There has been plenty of rain around in Auckland in the lead up to this match so while plenty of sixes are expected in this one I’m not convinced we will see as many as we usually do here. I would expect the wicket to have something in it for the seamers and I’m not convinced either batting line up are firing like they can.
That is certainly the case for New Zealand and even if South Africa do fire they won’t find it easy to go big against this classy New Zealand attack so this is a rare occasion where I think it could be worth going under on the sixes.
Tips
Back Under 14.5 sixes for a 4/10 stake at 1.85 with Coral
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