PREVIEW: India vs New Zealand - Fifth ODI

Sport360 staff 15:16 28/10/2016
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  • India and New Zealand will face off in the final ODI of their five-match series at the Dr. YS Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam on Saturday.

    Many expected India to have wrapped up the series by now, but the Blackcaps have played some brilliant cricket to take the series to a decider.

    The New Zealand bowlers, especially, have been very consistent and have helped the Kiwis stay alive in the series with two wins at Delhi and Ranchi despite the New Zealand batsmen not putting up the most imposing of totals.

    India have some worries when it comes to their batting, the famed Indian order looking too dependent on Virat Kohli. In the two matches that Kohli failed to score more than 50 in this series, India have lost.

    The hosts will be looking for a bigger team effort in the decider on Saturday.


    DATE, TIME, VENUE INFO

    Date: October 29, 2016

    Time: 12:00 GST, 13:30 local time (IST), 08:00 GMT

    Venue: JSCA International Stadium, Ranchi.


    WHERE TO WATCH, LIVE STREAMING INFO

    TV: UAE – OSN Sports Cricket HD, India – Star Sports 1, HD 1 (English), Star Sports 3, HD 3 (Hindi), UK – Sky Sports 3 HD

    Online streaming: hotstar.com, Hotstar app (in India only)

    LIVE blog: Sport360.com/livescore


    TEAM NEWS, SQUAD, PREDICTED XI

    INDIA SQUAD: MS Dhoni (c), Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Jayant Yadav, Amit Mishra, Jasprit Bumrah, Dhawal Kulkarni, Umesh Yadav, Mandeep Singh, Kedar Jadhav.

    Out of the 14 players available to them, India have used just 12 over the course of the series. In fact, if Jasprit Bumrah wasn’t unwell before the Ranchi ODI, MS Dhoni might have gone in with the same XI in all matches so far.

    The form of Rohit Sharma is a bit of a worry for the Indian team. He has failed to cross 15 in the series so far, and Indian fans will be hoping that a big knock is just around the corner.

    In the previous match, all-rounder Axar Patel was promoted up the order to get a left-right handed batting combination going. It’ll be interesting to see if India continue that strategy or revert back to Manish Pandey at five, followed by Kedar Jadhav at six.

    If Bumrah is fit, expect him to come back into the team at the expense of Dhawal Kulkarni.

    PREDICTED INDIA XI: Rohit, Rahane, Kohli, Dhoni (c/wk), Pandey, Jadhav, Axar, Pandya, Mishra, Yadav, Bumrah.

    NEW ZEALAND SQUAD: Kane Williamson (c), Martin Guptill, Tom Latham, Ross Taylor, Corey Anderson, Trent Boult, Doug Bracewell, Anton Devcich, Matt Henry, James Neesham, Luke Ronchi, BJ Watling, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee.

    Predicting New Zealand’s XI is a tough task. After all, the Blackcaps have changed their XI for every match of the series so far.

    In the previous ODI, the Kiwis added more muscle to their bowling, playing two specialist fast bowlers and two spinners, in addition to all-rounders in Jimmy Neesham and Anton Devcich.

    Expect Kane Williamson to pick a similar team tomorrow, though, depending on the pitch they might decide to play an extra seamer. If that’s the case, then Matt Henry is likely to return to the line-up instead of Ish Sodhi.

    BJ Watling didn’t do much with the bat in Ranchi, but he should keep his place in the team ahead of the out-of-form Luke Ronchi.

    PREDICTED NEW ZEALAND XI: Guptill, Latham, Williamson (c), Taylor, Neesham, Devcich, Watling (wk), Santner, Southee, Henry, Boult.


    FORM

    (Last five matches – with latest match first)

    INDIA: L W L W W

    NEW ZEALAND: W L W L W


    MATCH PREDICTION

    India to win.

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