The opening match of the main draw in the T20 World Cup sees New Zealand taking on the tournament hosts India in Group 2. While each side has four matches which is one more than usual in the group stage of this tournament it is a risky ploy to ease your way in.
New Zealand will be slightly out of their comfort zone in this tournament. Conditions in India are much different to the ones they usually encounter back home but they’ve had a couple of warm up games to adjust to that and really most people expect India to dominate this group so from that point of view the Kiwis have little to lose.
New Zealand’s team looks fairly settled. They need to decide on the main spinner but you would think by virtue of the fact he began the summer in the team in the other formats that Mitchell Santner would get the go ahead there. Then it is whether they want to play another spinner or pick a seamer who can bowl good change ups.
India are flying at the minute. They’ve won 10 of their 11 matches in T20 in 2016 but they’ll know they was caught rusty when they started the series against Sri Lanka in India earlier in the year and need to guard against that happening again.
One of the strengths of India’s success recently has been a settled team and they are not expected to pull any surprises out of the bag here. Only a late injury would stop them naming the same XI which won the Asia Cup final nine days ago.
We’ve seen six matches in Nagpur in this tournament already and each one the theme was the turning track. I expect it to turn here as well but they have had three days to get some life back into the deck so maybe the turn won’t be quite so drastic.
If you bet on head to head records you are all over New Zealand here as they have played four and won four against India. The last meeting was 2012 though so I’m not sure how much relevance they carry especially as only one came in India.
Brendon McCullum scored big runs in all four of those wins too and he isn’t around anymore so the Kiwis will need to fill that void if they are to be successful in this match.
Maybe if this game was on a ground not yet used in the tournament I could consider New Zealand but you’ve got to think India will get it done with the turn around in Nagpur. It is their first match though so backing them at a short price can’t be advised.
Instead I think I will take under 38.5 boundaries here. We’ve seen in the qualifying group that was here that the boundaries are big on this ground, especially square and the fielders have the chance to get around and protect them.
We’ve also seen a pretty slow and sluggish wicket and with the quality of bowling about to ramp up 3 or 4 notches on what we’ve seen so far I think that will make it even harder work for the batsmen here.
Given the nature of the wicket slowing up I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the sides really struggle so that boundary line looks quite high especially if the likes of Kane Williamson spends a lot of time at the crease.
WON – Back Under 38.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
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