Sri Lanka finish their tour of New Zealand on Sunday when they play the second of two T20 internationals in Auckland. New Zealand have won the Test series and the ODI series since Sri Lanka landed on their shores and after a win in the first T20 they’ll be looking for series success here too.
That defeat saw Sri Lanka’s number one ranking come under threat in this second game. That won’t have a massive impact in terms of the upcoming World T20 but could have longer term effects were they to lose the match and with it top spot in the rankings so they’ll be eager not to lose.
New Zealand blasted out of the traps in the opening match on Thursday but only just ended up with enough runs in their 20 overs and their task here will be to maintain their aggression throughout the innings to give their bowlers an easier time of things.
Kiwi coach Mike Hesson confirmed he would look to use all 13 men in New Zealand’s squad in these two matches so that means we can expect Adam Milne and Mitchell Santner to play in this game. Grant Elliott could be one to make way and Ish Sodhi will probably be the other with spinners not really in the game here.
Sri Lanka were in all sorts of trouble early on in their run chase in the first match so it was to their credit that they recovered to run New Zealand so close. In fairness their lower order has gone well in all the limited overs matches but they are crying out for some starts from their top order.
It remains to be seen whether Sri Lanka will make changes at the top of the innings. One change which is being talked about is Thisara Perera missing out but his batting prowess could keep him in the side and any changes could involve Suranga Lakmal missing out with Dushmantha Chameera a potential replacement.
The tour for Sri Lanka finishes at one of the great venues in world sport in the shape of Eden Park in Auckland. This ground is primarily a rugby ground so the boundaries are short and perfectly accessible.
This will be the 11th T20 international on this ground. New Zealand have four wins and four defeats in their completed matches here. Sri Lanka played here just once which was 10 years ago and it was a match they lost.
There’s no way I can get involved in the match betting here because we have no real indication of how the starting XIs will look for the game but perhaps more importantly because this ground can be impossible to defend.
Instead I’m going to go to the boundaries here. There were 42 of them in Mount Maunganui on significantly bigger boundaries than the two sides will find on this ground. The line here is 40.5 which given the dimensions of this ground looks way too low. If there can be 42 in a match where the chasing side were 42-4 there should be at least 41 here.
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