New Zealand v India ODI Series ....Rehearsals over for the Rock Stars.



Starts Tuesday 3rd March Napier 01.00 GMT
Sky Sports 1

They have been dubbed the Rock stars of cricket on this tour, however in the two Twenty20 games the Indian team performed more like poor Karaoke singers!

Historically, New Zealand has always been a very difficult place for touring Indian teams. They are not used to the extra pace, bounce and seam movement in the pitches, and the colder, damper weather conditions.

India in New Zealand - One-Day Internationals

India in New Zealand ODI Series	1975/76		New Zealand	2-0
India in New Zealand ODI Series	1980/81		New Zealand	2-0
India in New Zealand ODI Series	1993/94		drawn	2-2
India in New Zealand ODI Series	1998/99		drawn	2-2
India in New Zealand ODI Series	2002/03		New Zealand	5-2

There have been no warm up games on this tour for the Indians to acclimatise and the gung ho and complacent attitude of the Indian batsmen in these two games in the shortest format suggested they were in rehearsals for bigger challenges ahead in the ODI and Test series.

The kiwi's won the first game comfortably by 7 wickets and plenty of balls to spare, but the second game was a much closer affair with them prevailing of the very last ball of the game. All credit to the Kiwi's for winning these games, but India will also have been encouraged by the improvement for the second game and the fact that they are now more acclimatised.

So will the 2-0 win for the Kiwi's in the Twenty20 games prove indicative of things to come in this ODI series?

Yes and No in my opinion.

Yes the conditions will be similar, but I believe the result will be different.

There is no comparison between the slogfest Twenty20 format and the 50 over longer version. India are, arguably, the world’s best ODI side at present. They come into this series on the back of a 4-1 series win in Sri Lanka and a 5-0 home series win against England. They have won nine out of their last ten games in this format and are full of confidence.

But those wins were on more familiar sub continent tracks so a better form line could be how India got on in their last tour to Australia, on pitches that will be more akin to the ones they face in this series.

On that tour in 2007, India were humiliated in the Twenty20 game and they lost a couple of the early games to Australia and Sri Lanka in the Tri nation CB series.

But they improved as they got more acclimatised to the conditions and they went on to win that CB series comfortably. I believe the same will occur in this series. India will be a lot better the more they get acclimatised.

The Kiwi's are formidable opposition in this format on their home pitches. However the major difference between them and India is the number of potential match winners. On the batting front the Kiwis have for a while now relied too heavily on McCullum, Taylor and Oram, and Vettori in the bowling department.

This reliance was demonstrated once again in the Twenty Games with the main men being the main contributors to the series win.

India on the other hand have a wealth of talent in both the bowling and batting departments. They have Sehwag, Gamhir, Raina, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and the Pathan brothers batting in lower order. India know that they only need three or four of these attacking positive players to come off to post or chase any score. On the bowling front they have Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma and Harbhajan Singh as potential match winners.

Another factor in this series could be the trend in New Zealand now to have "drop in” pitches. These are better for batting, slower and lower and will negate some of the advantage that the Kiwis had in past series.

Overall I believe there is a big gap in the class of these two sides in this format of the game. Though the Indians could still have the odd bad hair day, I am confident that they will get used to the conditions and over the five games they will prevail comfortably.

So what’s the bet?

I intend to play both the Series Outright and Series Correct Score markets. The weather usually plays spoilsport in New Zealand and we will have to take the chance that all five games will be completed, otherwise the Series Correct Score market could be voided.

My suggested bets for this series are:

In the Series Outright Market

BACK India to win for 5 points @ 1.62 at Stan James

In the Series Correct Score Market

BACK India to win 5-0 for 1 point @ 10.0 at Sky Bet
BACK India to win 4-1 for 1 point @ 4.0 at Corals

Join me and lets all see the rehearsals pay off for the Rock stars of cricket.

Bigjoe