New Zealand vs India: First ODI in Napier expected to be a run-fest

Both New Zealand and India are in decent form in limited-overs cricket with victories against Sri Lanka and Australia respectively. Even as the Black Caps defeated the Lankans in the ODI and T20I series, India only won the ODI matches. The two teams are now scheduled to play a five-match ODI series, which is set to get underway on January 23 at the McClean Park in Napier.

In the meantime, the first ODI of the series is expected to be a high scoring affair. Central Districts and Canterbury locked horns at the venue in the 2018-19 Super Smash. Batting first, the Districts, captained by Tom Bruce, amassed 225 runs for three in 20 overs. Opening the batting Will Young scored 89 runs from 50 balls with eight boundaries and three hits into the stands.

A similar track for first ODI

During Canterbury’s run-chase, Tom Latham notched 110 runs from 60 balls with 10 fours and six over-boundaries. Skipper Cole McConchie scored 48 runs from 25 matches at a strike-rate of 192. However, their efforts went in vain. As far as the overall summary of the match is concerned, it goes without saying that the bowlers had a tough time and they had to work out of the skins.

Nevertheless, the bowlers had something to cheer for as the leather moved around in the first three overs of both innings’. Prior to India’s match against New Zealand, the pitch dished out is pretty similar to the T20 encounter and by the looks of it, the deck hasn’t changed much. There would be a couple of new balls from both the ends.

Therefore, during the mandatory powerplay of 10 overs chances of wickets going down would be fairly high. In the previous games between Lanka and the Black Caps, all four limited-overs games saw high scoring affairs where scores of 300 turned out to be bread and butter for the batting team.

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