Australia will find out who they will face in the Trans-Tasman T20 Tri Series final later in the week when New Zealand take on England for the second spot in the Auckland showdown on Sunday. The two sides meet at Hamilton to determine Australia’s opponents.
England go into the match knowing they must win and do so by a big margin of around 20 runs or with two overs to spare. New Zealand have the luxury of being able to lose the match and still progress so long as it is a narrow defeat.
New Zealand
I guess the big challenge for New Zealand going into this match is making sure they got the shock of the record breaking defeat to Australia on Friday out of their system. To be fair Eden park is notoriously difficult to defend and as such they were never true favourites even with such a huge score on the board but failing to get over the line will have hurt.
The positive is that they took a decent bowling attack to the cleaners in the first place but there are lot of mental issues at stake here. New Zealand also have that nasty situation of possibly having it in their mind to play for the narrow defeat to qualify margin and time and time again when teams are in this situation we see them come up short.
England
The equation is simple for England in this match. If they are to stay in the tournament and progress to take on Australia then they have to win this match and do it by a sizeable margin. They have not been anywhere near their best in this competition so far and given how bad they have been to have a last chance to make the final will be welcome.
England have bowled very badly in this tournament so far and if they are going to make it through that will need to change here but they have shown in global events that they have the capabilities to do that. The bright side is their batting came more to the party last time out so if they can bowl well they could yet qualify.
Team News
New Zealand will replace Ben Wheeler I would imagine. He was ruled out of the attack after sending a couple of beamers down but he had already gone for 50+ by then. If Mitchell Santner is fit he’ll come in if not Anaru Kitchen might.
England captain Eoin Morgan has declared himself fit and he will come back in for James Vince. Liam Plunkett is out with an injury so there will be a recall for either Tom Curran or Liam Dawson depending on whether England want to extend the batting.
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Betting
There is something in me that thinks New Zealand will struggle to overcome the failure of the other day in this match but I’m already on England to win the tournament so I’ll use that bet to cheer them on and instead take advantage of the match situation.
That sees England having to swing the willow which should in theory bring the boundaries into play. Whether England bat first or second they are going to have to go big to either set up a big enough score or to chase down a score in the required time. We’ve seen this New Zealand side fire with the bat in their last two matches and England don’t look like restricting anyone at the minute. This is a ground where boundary totals regularly go beyond 40. I think we’ll see a 40.5 line covered here.
Tips
WON – Back Over 40.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
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