New Zealand drew first blood in an extremely competitive first T20 match against Sri Lanka on Sunday afternoon and on Tuesday they will have the first opportunity to secure the series when the sides meet for the second game.
The home side know they have to win the match if they are going to force a decider later in the week so they are the ones under pressure, but they showed enough in that first match to suggest it isn’t an impossible task.
Sri Lanka
I would imagine Sri Lanka might well have thought they were heavily in the box seat in the first match after they posted a score in excess of 170 but they let New Zealand get away from them when they bowled, and once the rain came that was pretty much the end of their chances with the ball then resembling a bar of soap as evidenced by the first ball Lasith Malinga bowled after the interval, which wouldn’t have hit another cut strip.
There were positives and negatives for Sri Lanka in that opening match then but I feel they will be happier that their batting was such a positive than concerned about their bowling as the latter has often been the strongest suit. They need it to come good here but we did see at times in that opening match that the tools are in place for that to happen.
New Zealand
Given that the Kiwis chose to rest a few big guns for this series, I would imagine they will have been delighted with the result in that opening game, and pretty satisfied with the performance that they put it. It wasn’t perfect, there is no point in suggesting otherwise, but in some ways that is fine as it means they have improvements they can make. Given that they won that first match, logic would suggest that if they do improve here they will secure the series.
New Zealand can bat better at the top of their order which will propel their scores even higher and there are improvements to be made when it comes to their bowling department as well which bodes well for them. They have had a match to get into their stride so you would naturally expect them to be better in this game, so the Kiwis really can approach this match with a lot of confidence.
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Team News
Sri Lanka have already begun to look ahead of the World T20 in Australia next winter and have played a couple of young players accordingly. They are expected to name an unchanged side for this match.
New Zealand could well decide to get the series done and dusted before making any optional switches to their ranks. Lockie Ferguson was ruled out of the series late on so he isn’t available to them.
Betting
I took Sri Lanka to win the opening match of the series and I was licking my wounds a little bit because for large periods they were well on top and trading odds on to win the game. We won’t know who would have won but for the rain but you sense the break didn’t exactly help Sri Lanka so I’m willing to go with them again given that their price hasn’t really come in much since the first game.
There is improvement in New Zealand and we should acknowledge that but there might be more to come from Sri Lanka too with their younger players a little more used to the environment now. I saw enough in that first game to suggest that the home side can be competitive here again at the very least and having suffered a narrow defeat I fancy the Sri Lankans to turn it round and level up the series.
Tips
Back Sri Lanka to beat New Zealand for a 4/10 stake at 2.38 with Sky Bet
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