Australia v New Zealand 2nd Test......Fortune Favours The Brave




Friday 28th November 00.00 GMT

Adelaide

Weather

Some say fortune favours the brave. Some say there is a thin line between bravery and foolishness. Elvis said only fools rush in. Call me a fool if you like, but I am rushing in and opposing the Aussies again in this Test.

STOP!, I hear you say, how can you have any faith in the Kiwis after their dismal showing in the first test. Well you maybe right, however I have my reasons for optimism and here they are.

Whilst my lay of Aussies at 1.39 and back of Kiwis at 16.5 did not ultimately pay off, there were long periods in the game where it appeared that an upset was on the cards.

The Kiwis had the Aussies reeling in the 1st Innings at 139-6 and again in the 2nd innings at 115-6. Though the markets still kept faith with the Aussies during these periods and we only saw their price drift to 1.6, the Kiwi price tumbled from that 16.5 pre match to around 3.2. As a result, those brave enough to oppose the Aussies had ample opportunity to lock in a decent profit at least.

So what went wrong for the Kiwis, how did they manage to still lose by nearly 150 runs despite having the Aussie top order in constant trouble?

Yet again, their downfall was their batting. On a greentop pitch, they succumbed to some great bowling by Australia and failed to capitalise on the bowling heroics of their team mates. By bowling Australia out for just 214 in 1st innings, the Kiwis had a great chance to take a crucial first innings lead in a low scoring game. They failed miserably and collapsed from 127-5 to just 156 all out. Conceding a 58 run lead to Australia was always going to leave an uphill mountain to climb, and though they again skittled out the Australian top order, they failed to polish off the tail and the ensuing target of 326 was never going to be within their reach.

Ok, I hear you say, yes they had chances and blew them. What is going to change for this match and why the continued faith in the Kiwis?

Cricket is more about pitches then anything else. The pitch at Brisbane proved to be a greentop that suited the seam and pace attack of both teams. The batsmen of both teams struggled to come to terms with it and whilst the Kiwi efforts were woeful, the Aussie efforts were not much better. The main difference between the sides was that the Aussie tail wagged while the Kiwi tail withered.

This pitch at Adelaide will be different. There is no comparison between this and the one at Brisbane. Adelaide has a reputation for being a batters pitch. Its one of slowest and flattest in Australia and batsmen from both teams will feel more comfortable, especially in the first innings.

There has been a pattern here that sees the pitch take spin in the latter part of the matches and if there is a result, it will come about through spin bowlers coming to the fore rather then the seamers on days 4 and 5.

Of the two sides, though Australia undoubtedly have the better seam attack, the presence of Vettori and maybe Jeetan Patel in Kiwi bowling attack would see them more likely to take advantage of any turn there may be.

Let’s look at how the Australian bowling has fared in first innings on this ground this century:

West Indies have first innings scores here of 391 in 2000, and 405 in 2005. South Africa scored 374 in 2001.England 342 in 2002 and 551-6 declare in 2006. India scored 523 in 2003 and 526 earlier this year.

The Kiwis on their last tour here in 2004 scored only 251, but that was in the days of Mgrath and Warne. This current Australian attack does not have Warne to turn to with older ball and so I expect the Kiwis to improve vastly on that 251 score last time.

Changes are likely for both teams for this test. Shane Watson has been axed by Australia and into the squad comes Peter Siddle who made a decent debut in India. I would imagine however that the spinner Jason Krejza would be favourite to come in to replace Watson.

The Kiwis will probably look to bring in Peter Foulton and if the pitch looks like I think it will, then they maybe tempted to bring in Jeetan Patel as a second spinner.

Whatever the composition of the sides, I am confident that this pitch will be a great leveller, confident that the Kiwi batting will bounce back and post enough runs to at least ensure a draw, confident that the Aussie bowling will again struggle once the shine has gone from the new ball.

Therefore my suggested bets for this Test are:

BACK the Draw for 3 points @ 4.7 on Betfair
BACK New Zealand for 1 point @ 14.0 on Betfair

Join me and hopefully, far from fools rushing in, fortune will favour our bravery in sticking with the Kiwi’s.

Bigjoe