Pakistan and New Zealand continue their ODI series on Wednesday when the two sides once again grace the National Stadium in Karachi for the second game of the three and the first one where the home side can claim the honours.
Pakistan opened the series with a fairly routine win in the opening game and will be able to secure an unassailable lead if they can pick up another victory here. New Zealand have no option but to win this match if they are going to force a decider.
Pakistan
I would imagine Pakistan would be pretty satisfied with their win in the opening game. If we were judging their performance on perfection then it probably wasn’t that but it certainly wasn’t too bad. They were able to keep their foot on the pressure valve with the ball throughout the bowling innings and they were never in too much trouble at any stage in the run chase. In an ideal world someone would have batted right through and got a hundred but they got the job done.
You would imagine the longer this series goes on the better Pakistan will get. I say that firstly because it was their first ODI for a while and I also say that because we are beginning to see signs that the square here is pretty tired. That isn’t a surprise. There has been a good deal of cricket in this part of the world over the last five weeks or so and as the pitches get slower and lower you would think Pakistan will only feel more and more comfortable.
New Zealand
Obviously New Zealand won’t be happy that they lost the opening game but they would have been pleased to be as competitive as they were when you consider that they had players flying in who hadn’t had a match in the conditions. Those players are only going to come on for the run and you would expect there to be a good deal of natural improvement in the tourists. If that does come and they do nothing silly then they are entitled to be competitive at the very least.
New Zealand won’t need to look too hard at where they need the improvement to come. They didn’t really maximise their batting innings and a score of 255/9 was never cutting the mustard here. Nobody took the initiative in the innings to go past 50 and push for a hundred even though six players passed 25. That will be one focus of attention here. To be fair, given they had a substandard total the Kiwi bowlers defended it with all they had.
Special Offer
Sign up for a Boylesports account and bet £10 to get up to £20 in free bets! Perfect offer for this series! Click the image below for this great offer! New accounts only. 18+ T&Cs apply. Gamble Aware.
Team News
There is no huge reason for Pakistan to make changes to a winning side unless they want to rotate their bowlers but the PSL is the next cricket they play after this so there is no real need for them to do that.
New Zealand could only enhance their side if they picked Ish Sodhi. That might mean they need to leave out Henry Shipley who didn’t do a huge amount wrong on his debut on Monday. Doug Bracewell has arrived but isn’t expected to play.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets here with the first one being under 560.5 runs. There were only 513 runs in the opening game and as conditions tires in Karachi I only see the scores going down not up. Even if they do go up there is nothing to suggest that we are going to get another 48 runs when you consider that New Zealand batted their 50 overs in the first game and Pakistan chased the total down with only 11 balls to spare. We saw the pitch in the first game start to really turn and that is only going to accentuate from here on in. Both these teams could play three frontline spinners and a part-time one so there will be no shortage of spin on show and so I think 560.5 runs will be beyond the two teams.
One of those spinners will be Michael Bracewell who had a good first game with 43 runs and two wickets for 83 performance points and given that I expect the conditions to suit spin bowlers I see no reason why he can’t have a decent enough game here too. He might not contribute 43 runs to the cause but he is a genuine lower order batter so that isn’t out of the question. He may well however grab a couple of wickets, especially when you consider his two wickets in the first game were genuine players in the form of the two openers. Bracewell might even be handy for a catch so over 38.5 points feels a performance line he can cover once again.
Tips
Back Under 560.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betway
Back M.Bracewell’s Performance – Over 38.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Bet365
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2023
