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Monday 13 July, 19:30
TV: Sky Sports
West Indies v New Zealand second ODI team news
West Indies have a 1-0 lead after they produced a very New Zealand-style performance in game one at Providence. They squeezed the Kiwis superbly after winning the toss, restricting them to 267 all out. Alzarri Joseph claimed four wickets.
Keacy Carty (95) and Shai Hope (87) then made light work of the chase, getting home with seven balls to spare and for the loss of only three wickets.
They had sprung surprises in selection. Ackeem Augustse opened with John Campbell instead of Justin Greaves. There was no Roston Chase or Jayden Seales. Left-arm wrist spinner Vitel Lawes debuted. If they looked a bowler short (Sherfane Rutherford bowled three overs) then they got away with it.
Possible XI: Campbell, Auguste, Carty, Hope, Rutherford, Jangoo, Motie, Pierre, Alzarri, Shamar, Lawes
New Zealand are not at full-strength with the ball so it was perhaps no surprise they were powderpuff. Even so, on a helpful surface their three spinners failed to gain enough control to be in the game when defending.
Mitch Santner, Michael Bracewell and Jayden Lennox as a trio were neither econmocal nor potent enough. The balance of the XI did look pretty good, though with six genuine bowling options.
Henry Nicholls and Will Young were the choice of openers for New Zealand and they built a foundation. They went with lowr-order combinations of power and nous with Bracewell, Santner and Nathan Smith from Nos 6-8. bu tthey fell away when 300 looked on the cards after Daryl Mitchell's half-century.
Possible XI: Young, Nicholls, Chapman, Mitchell,, Bracewell, Santner, Smith, Duffy, Fisher, Lennox
West Indies v New Zealand second ODI pitch report
By contrast to the three previous ODI at Providence, we had a road. New Zealand's 267 looked monstrous in the context of the other scores of 149, 108 and 178. It was only the second time a total of more than 250 was chased at the venue.
But it did look conducive to spin with Lawes picking up three wickets. It has been confirmed that the same pitch will be used so there should be even more help. With almoist 100 overs of traffic it should be expected that the track starts to slow, particularly in the second innings. The side batting first may well reckon that targetting 250 is smart.
The markets are wise, however. The Betfair Sportsbook go over/under Kiwi runs at 243.5. West Indies are available at over/under 238.5. It's 5/61.84 the pair. In-play might be the the best way to back low runs totals, however. Any semblance of a partnership in the top four should see runs lines spike and this could be a surface where it might be difficult to 'get in' and then accelerate, laading to collapse. We did see a bit of that from New Zealand.
West Indies v New Zealand second ODI match prediction
The win for the Windies in game one, and the ease with which they achieved it, has not caused any turnaround on the Betfair Exchange. The match odds market is unmoved with West indies at 2.305/4 and New Zealand 1.758/11.
Pre-toss these pages were discussing whether the Kiwis had been underrated at 1.738/11 and there was a disappointmet that West Indies were not bigger. It is surprising that the status quo has remained.
It is impossible to see the visitors as value now. Or, rather a wrong price. Even though they should be better for the run having had a good look at the surface. They are well-placed to adapt. West Indies, as stated, got away with five bowlers only. This time they might not be so lucky with New Zealand rarely inefficient back-to-back.
But any Kiwi bet has to be in-play, perhaps putting on a squeeze of their own when defending. We would want a choice affair and that should be achievable given the expected difficulty of the surface.
West Indies v New Zealand second ODI player bets
We were on Mitchell to land a top-bat win thanks to that 40% win rate in the last two years. He obliged. We keep faith with the win-rate system and go with Rutherford again, at 9/25.50 with Sportsbook to cop for the hosts. The 25% win rate has been clipped slightly but there still enough room between the implied probability and the reality of how often he wins. Had this been played on an absolute road we could probably make a case for a swerve but the Providence track encourages us to get involved. He has a good chance of getting to the crease iwth time on his side and not much to beat. He has wins against New Zealand in the recent past.
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