The first of the T20 World Cup semi finals sees England clash with New Zealand in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday and England start as short price favourites.

 

 

 

 

Note all prices are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change

 

Outright Betting Update.

 

Heading into the semi finals and the latest outright betting has England as 17/10 favourites to win the tournament. Pakistan are next best at 5/2 with Australia at 33/10 and New Zealand can be backed at around 4/1

 

England

 

England topped Group 1, the toughest of the Super 12 pools. They won each of their first 4 matches, against West Indies (6 wickets), Bangladesh (8 wickets), Australia (8 wickets) and Sri Lanka (26 runs) but they came unstuck against South Africa on Saturday, going down by 10 runs.

 

England were tasked with chasing 190 for victory against the Proteas who needed a wide margin win to make the semi finals themselves. It was easily England's toughest task to date and they came up short despite 5 batsmen getting good starts.

 

Jos Buttler has scored 240 runs in his 5 matches including a ton against Sri Lanka last time out, the only century of the tournament so far. Adil Rashid has taken 8 wickets.

 

This is how they lined up last time out

 

Jason Roy, Jos Buttler (wk), Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow, Eoin Morgan (c), Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Chris Jordan, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood

 

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New Zealand

 

New Zealand finished as runners up to Pakistan in their pool. They were beaten by Pakistan by 5 wickets in their opening match before their most impressive result, an 8 wicket win over India put them back in contention. NZ had to be foot perfect from there onwards and although they made harder than expected work of Scotland (won by 16 runs), they held their nerve to see off Namibia (52 runs) and Afghanistan (8 wickets).

 

Martin Guptill is the leading NZ run scorer in the tournament with 176 in 5 matches and Trent Boult has taken 11 wickets, also in 5 matches.

 

This is how New Zealand lined up last time out

Martin Guptill, Daryl Mitchell, Kane Williamson (c), Devon Conway (wk), Glenn Phillips, James Neesham, Mitchell Santner, Adam Milne, Tim Southee, Ish Sodhi, Trent Boult

 

 

Head to Head

 

Overall the teams have met 21 times with England winning 12 to New Zealand's 7 with 1 tie and 1 no result

 

The teams met 5 times in New Zealand in November 2019 and both sides won 2 and 1 match was tied.

 

The Betting

 

England are currently trading at around 6/10 to win the game and New Zealand can be backed at around 5/4

 

Buttler is 5/2 favourite to top score for England and Williamson is the same price to do likewise for New Zealand.

 

Rashid is 11/4 favourite to be England's top bowler and Sodhi and Boult are 3/1 joint favourites to be top bowler for New Zealand

 

Note all prices are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change

 

The Verdict

 

The Proteas proved England's bowlers can be got at although the circumstances of what was needed in that match need taking into account and England look

worthy favourites on the balance of their displays.

 

I'm going to take a horses for courses approach.

 

New Zealand's only match at Abu Dhabi was their most recent outing against Afghanistan and Trent Boult (3/17) was Man of the Match. With that in mind, he gets my vote to take 2 wickets or more.

 

Bets: Trent Boult wickets, over 1.5 at 12/10

 

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Note all prices are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change

 

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