New Zealand vs Sri Lanka Betting: Winner Prediction
Recommended Bet: Back New Zealand to win @ 1.6 in live Betting with BlueChip
New Zealand are 1.39 with Sri Lanka at 3.05.
If you’ve been reading our previews of this World Cup, you can probably guess what’s the betting strategy here.
We have a favourite who we think will end up winning because they look stronger in every department and could well come close to winning the tournament as a whole.
If Sri Lanka had all their players available, they may have been worth a small gamble to upset the odds. But not with quite so many players missing.
So we’ll go with our strategy that paid off in Australia vs Sri Lanka.
We’ll hope that Sri Lanka start the game well or at least have one phase of it where they have the favourite under pressure.
And we’ll try to back the favourite (in this case New Zealand) at better odds in Live Betting.
This time our target is 1.6.
If the Black Caps reach that, back them. If not, leave it alone.
And if you haven’t read it already, here’s our BlueChip review.
After the joy of beating Australia so comprehensively in their first match and putting themselves in a fantastic position to make the semis, there was the disappointment of their washed-out game against Afghanistan.
It’s a match New Zealand would have expected to win at least 8/10 times so they’ll see it as a missed opportunity.
England had already beaten Afghanistan and Australia are likely to beat them as well so the fact they had a no-result there can be viewed as one point lost.
Despite that superb win over Australia, there are still a few doubts about this New Zealand side.
In a high-scoring match where Finn Allen and Devon Conway had sky-high strike rates, Kane Williamson scored at a run-a-ball 23.
There will be times when a go-slow approach is needed on tricky wickets where 140-150 is par but in high-scoring games, it could cost them that he’s not naturally suited to scoring quickly.
But he’s the skipper so they’re unlikely to drop him.
Michael Bracewell came into the World Cup in superb form yet they decided to go with the more experienced Mitchell Santner as their second spinner against Australia.
As it happens, Santner had a really good game and bowled 3-31 in that match but let’s see if they decide to go with Bracewell this time.
The good news is that Daryl Mitchell is now fit to play after a broken finger.
He had a super World Cup last year, is experienced and provides them with an extra bowling option so the unfortunate Mark Chapman may have to give way.
Likely XI
Allen, Conway, Williamson, Phillips, Mitchell, Neesham, Santner, Southee, Sodhi, Boult, Ferguson.
Sri Lanka will look back at their match against Australia as one they may well have won on another day. Or at least one they should have lost by a much smaller margin.
At one stage in Australia’s chase, they had them in trouble after dismissing David Warner and Mitch Marsh, with Glenn Maxwell soon following after a few boundaries.
But they let Marcus Stoinis get away and the big Melbourne Stars man went ballistic from that point onwards as he hit six after six to close the game in a hurry.
Part of the problem was that their star man Hasaranga de Silva had a rare bad day.
His three overs went for 53 runs in what was one of his most expensive returns ever in a T20I.
Had he bowled to his usual standard and it may have been a very different story.
But then again, every player is allowed a bad day at the office and this was his.
Earlier with the bat, Charith Asalanka was the best of a bad bunch with 38 off 25 to help Sri Lanka get close to something like a competitive score.
Pathum Nissanka fought hard for his 40 off 45 but just about every batsman found it hard going on the day.
But their problems are far greater than Hasaranga having a bad day with the ball and their batsmen not scoring quickly enough.
Their injuries just keep on mounting. In their last match, fast bowler Binura Fernando was the latest injury victim, pulling up after bowling just five deliveries.
It’s a real shame for Sri Lanka that their players keep on getting injured because they may have had a real chance of making the semis after other results went their way.
They may still make the semis but at the moment they’re the walking wounded.
Likely XI
Nissanka, Mendis, Dhananjaya, Asalanka, Rajapaksa, Shanaka, Hasaranga, Karunaratne, Theekshana, Kamara, Fernando.
New Zealand vs Sri Lanka Head-to-Head
These two have played each other 18 times with New Zealand currently 10-8 up so there really isn’t much in it.
Of those 10 wins, five were batting first and five were batting second so there’s been no real advantage to the Black Caps to doing one over the other.
It’s been all New Zealand over the last few years in this match.
They won a Series 2-0 back in 2016, a one-off match in 2019 and two of the three in a 3-match Series in Sri Lanka in 2019, the last time they played each other.
So that’s five of the last six that the Black Caps have won.
Venue & conditions
Thursday saw two matches played here at the SCG.
First South Africa posted 205/5 against Bangladesh and then India scored 179/2 against the Netherlands.
Both teams defended that easily, although they went in as heavy favourites so that was no more than what was expected of them.
Those first innings scores suggest this is a pretty good batting wicket.
New Zealand can probably be trusted to get close to 180 batting first given their batting looks solid and that Sri Lanka are missing so many important bowlers.
Sri Lanka, not so much.
This New Zealand attack looks good and varied and they all bowled extremely well against Australia.
So going under 150 runs may pay off if it’s Dasun Shanka’s team batting first.
The forecast is good for a change.
There’s only a 5% chance of rain so we should get a full game without interruptions or reduced overs.
