Bangladesh v New Zealand 1st ODI ...... I fancy an undercooked stake

Dhaka
Thursday 9th October
03.00 GMT

I don't mind admitting that I am probably the world's worst cook. If I was cooking a steak, you can bet your life it would finish up undercooked or overcooked and neither would be tasty.

For this first game of the series, I fancy another type of stake, a small stake laying the Kiwis based on the fact that they will be totally undercooked for this encounter.

Their one and only warm up game was abandoned without a ball being bowled and they go into this game not fully acclimatised and used to the likely pitch and conditions they will face.

Recent form of the sides does not point to anything but a Kiwi win. The Kiwis are coming of the back of home and away ODI series wins against England. Bangladesh have lost their last 27 games against test playing nations!

So what makes me think its worth backing them this time?

Bangladesh’s two most famous wins were against Australia at the start of their 2005 Ashes tour and against India at the start of the 2007 world cup. Australia and India were undercooked on those occasions and I believe it’s worth taking a chance, for minimal stakes, that the Kiwis will be similarly undercooked for this game.

There a couple of other reasons why it may pay to back Bangladesh. Their home pitches will suit their spin attack and with the nature of the pitches being slow and low, its likely to be a low scoring match, this in itself means there will be close finish and anyone laying the Kiwi’s should have plenty of trading opportunities at least, if not an outright win.

Bangladesh batting recently has been woeful, they have struggled to pass even 150 in their last five games. However their bowling has looked solid and is improving.

Away to Australia they restricted the hosts to totals of 255 and 199 bowling first. Not many teams have restricted the Aussies in that manner on their home patch and  I feel they are capable of restricting the Kiwi’s too on pitches that will suit them even more.

The onus would then be on the batsmen to put up a better effort. I believe against a Kiwi attack that is not as strong as it used to be, and on a familiar home pitch, they got a good opportunity to get the batting back on track. In recent games it was more a case of bad application then a lack of ability and after criticism I believe they will apply themselves better in this series.

There was a further crisis for Bangladesh is last couple of weeks with the news that some of their players were retiring to play in the ICL.

Whilst this was obviously not great news, it does give an opportunity to more youngsters to step. They will be hungry to impress and that fact that they will be unknown to the Kiwi’s could work to Bangladesh’s advantage.

Even after the defections to the ICL, Bangladesh still have most of their big players around. The captain Ashraful, Tamim and Sakhib Al  Hassan are all capable of turning games on their own. The all rounder Mortaza and the spinners are capable of restricting teams on these slow pitches.

Overall I expect New Zealand to win the series, but Bangladesh’s best chance of a win will be in this opening game.

Bangladesh’s confidence has been hit in recent games. They have had time to regroup and they will be determined to try and curb their alarming batting woes of late.
I believe it’s worth taking a chance that they will take advantage of the Kiwis vulnerability whilst they acclimatise and therefore my suggested bet for this game is:

Pick: LAY New Zealand for 1 point liability @ 1.11 on Betfair.

Join me and whilst you may not fancy my cooking, this undercooked stake could well end up tasty.

Bigjoe