Preview: India vs New Zealand #WorldT20

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Any post on Cricket is incomplete without this line “Cricket is Religion in India and Sachin is the God” This is that one time when we get to see the united India and with the upcoming T20 World Cup, things are going to heat up ! The World T20 has come to India this time around and is a great chance for India to lift the World Cup after exactly after 9 years since we won the inaugural edition in 2007. Dhoni and men look in great touch winning 10 of the last 11 T20 matches they have played. First beating the mighty Australians in Australia and then the series against Sri Lanka at home and finally winning the Asia Cup T20. We couldn’t have asked for anything more, just the perfect way to enter the World T20.

It’s India vs New Zealand today at the Vidarbha Cricket Association ground in Nagpur. It will be after a long time since these two teams will be facing each other. While the Indian teams looks settled, the Kiwis on the other hand have a strong but relatively new team with a new captain. Further this will be the first major tournament where New Zealand will play without their star striker Brendon McCullum who announced his retirement a couple of months ago. Kiwis might be hoping they could sneak a win without ‘Baz’ while the Indians would be quite relaxed. The Indian team look good and settled. The all important bowling department looks in great shape (after a long time) We’ve finally found our own ‘Malinga’ in Jasprit Bumrah The top order looks good with the openers in good touch, but the team heavily relies on Virat Kohli.

  And since he has been doing good all this while, the middle order and lower middle order hasn’t had the chance to play. That is a serious concern. However Mahendra Singh Dhoni has finally found his ‘finishing’ touch back  [Read: Dhoni the fantastico finisher] Both New Zealand and India have lost one warm up match they have played. New Zealand was ‘spun‘ in the British web while Indians were too close yet to far in their outing against South Africa. Based on their recent run, India do have an edge going forward in the India vs New Zealand match today.

The pitches in India will be spin friendly and Nagpur won’t be any different. We saw the Afghanistan team play there and managed to have some high scoring games. India having a strong batting line up and a similar spin attack, have a good chance of winning this one. New Zealand will definitely be banking on its power hitters to help them get over the line. But Kiwis with a relatively new yet a strong team along with a new captain, India has a better chance winning this one today. Of course we cannot rule out surprises !