The middle match of the three at the T20 World Cup on Wednesday sees the two associate sides in Group C meeting in Guyana when Papua New Guinea and Uganda play their second match of the competition.
These two teams opened up their campaigns with defeats in their first match but both will know this is going to be the best chance to make history for their country and pick up a first win in a World Cup so this should be keenly contested.
Papua New Guinea
We didn’t really know what to expect from Papua New Guinea going into the tournament but they have probably raised expectations around them slightly after a very positive first performance even in defeat to West Indies. They will know that they never really got going with the bat in that match and it wasn’t a surprise that nerves played a part while a couple of world class cricketers kept the pressure on them on a wicket which wasn’t the easiest to bat on.
Where the pacific islanders will take a lot of confidence and credit was the way they bowled. They showed no fear against a very powerful batting unit but kept the stumps in play for the majority of their bowling innings and almost got their reward with only a very late blitz getting West Indies over the line in what looked to be a modest run chase at the beginning of it. If Papua New Guinea can bowl like they did in their first game and their batters come to the party after a hit out in these conditions they’ll put up a strong showing here.
Uganda
It all looked like it was a little too much for Uganda in their opening game. To be fair to them they came up against an Afghanistan side who we might look back on at the end of the tournament as one of the better in the competition. Uganda were beaten in the first 10 overs with the ball in truth. They just couldn’t put enough pressure on the opening pairing and ultimately they got away from them in the powerplay and never really looked back.
To be fair to Uganda, they fought back well with the ball and kept Afghanistan to a total that wasn’t too much over par but they never got to grips with things with the bat at all, as you would imagine with them having not had the exposure to world class bowling very often. You would expect their batters to go better against a side who are much more to their level and if they do that then the pace in their bowling unit could make this a tricky night for PNG.
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Team News
Papua New Guinea were not helped in that opening game by the absence of their leading wicket taker Norman Vanua who was injured. They will hope he is fit to come in and strengthen the bowling for this key game.
Although Uganda were well beaten in the opening match they probably had their best combinations on show so unless they want to stock up the battling a little more they might as the same XI to go out and perform again for them.
Betting
I’m expecting a good game here between two if not evenly matched sides certainly closer matched than either were in their opening match. I think Papua New Guinea are worthy favourites for the contest but the bookmakers might have overrated to the size of the Uganda margin of defeat to an Afghanistan side that I’ve been keen on since before the tournament. I’m happy to leave the match outcome alone though and go after a player performance.
That one is the one belonging to the Papua New Guinea captain Asadollah Vala who had a good game against West Indies with two wickets and 21 runs and he is going to be a key factor in this game. He opened the batting in that first match so he will definitely bat and given that he picked up a pair of wickets in the warm up match against Namibia it is likely he will bowl too. He has a performance line of 36.5 but this is a man with eight T20I 50s to his name, the highest score of which was 93* against Uganda. I think he covers this performance.
Tips
Back A.Vala’s Performance – Over 36.5 points for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
Back him here:
