The tri-series continues on Saturday when the home side New Zealand enter the fray as they pick up their preparations for the T20 World Cup which gets underway for them in two weeks. They go up against a Pakistan side who have already picked up a win in the competition.
That means if Pakistan win here they will have one foot in the final. New Zealand will be looking to show why they are fancied for the World Cup but having not played for a month they might need the outing to pick up some speed.
New Zealand
It has been a month since we saw New Zealand losing an ODI series in Australia and it is another month on from the last time they were playing T20 cricket. They were pretty active throughout the English summer but never really utilised their strongest side that often. That changed when they went to West Indies and now you would expect them to start taking things very seriously with no more than five proper matches left until they begin their World Cup campaign.
I think all eyes will be on the New Zealand batting in the lead up to that World Cup. We know that they have quality with the ball at their disposal but they are not blessed with a multitude of power hitters and in what is likely to be a high scoring World Cup that could be an issue. One or two of their batters weren’t in great form the last time we saw them either so they will be keen to sort that out before the tournament begins.
Pakistan
Full credit must go to Pakistan for their win in the opening match of the competition. Bangladesh were probably the friendliest opponent they could have but when you consider it was less than five days prior to that opening game that they were finishing a hard-fought series with England at home any win deserves respect. The fact that they played pretty well in winning that match was even more eye catching to us watching on.
The important thing for Pakistan is that it wasn’t just their openers who scored the runs for them. Mohammad Rizwan batted the innings through, which they probably won’t want throughout this tournament as they would like to test the order should the openers not deliver, but most importantly there were other contributions. As ever there was a decent bowling performance from an attack which is in a good rhythm.
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Team News
Daryl Mitchell has been ruled out of this tournament with a fractured finger. That is likely to ensure that Glenn Phillips plays a major role. There is no Mitchell Santner for this match as he is home with his family. Blair Tickner is in the squad for the first two matches.
Pakistan are likely to rotate their bowlers throughout this tournament as they look to keep them fresh but also in form as well. Mohammad Hasnain might be the one to come in for this match, potentially for Mohammad Wasim.
Betting
Considering he is a player who gets pushed up the order to maximise the overs, bowls overs at key times in the innings and fields in busy positions, I think the performance line of Jimmy Neesham is a little on the low side at 20.5. With New Zealand without Daryl Mitchell here it might be that Neesham plays a greater role with the bat and although the Pakistan attack is very good it certainly isn’t one which you can’t score against at the death as we saw in the series with England recently.
Neesham is a very good T20 bowler who is often trusted with the death overs himself and it might well be that New Zealand look to get him involved in that department here as a backup option for the T20 World Cup. He strikes a clean ball and has all the variations to take wickets. He is a pretty good fielder and has a score to settle having been involved in the run to the final of the World Cup last year. I like the over here.
Tips
Back J.Neesham’s Performance – Over 20.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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