India and New Zealand meet each other in the 2nd ODI at the Niranjan Shah Stadium in Rajkot, Gujarat, on Wednesday, January 14. The first game of the three-match series was played in Vadodara on Sunday, and it was comfortably won by India by a margin of four wickets. The hosts seem to be on a roll and will not hesitate to continue in the same vein of form. They will not rotate their side too much and go in with the same XI. New Zealand are also expected to do so with the hope of picking up a victory here, since a loss will also mean the loss of the series.
New Zealand will have to come back strongly in this encounter, and stop relying on the likes of Henry Nicholls, Devon Conway and Daryl Mitchell all the time. While these two are among the most experienced players in their ranks and even showed up with top performances in the first game, the others too have to step up. In the bowling department, Kyle Jamieson showed that he can lead from the front, and now the spinners will also have to do that. The visitors need to play at least two spinners in their XI.
India will be confident due to the good form shown by Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer. They know that it is just a matter of time before Rohit Sharma comes to the party as well. In their bowling department, Mohammed Siraj and Harshit Rana have fired in tandem, but if some more support is gained from Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar and Kuldeep Yadav, things will look brighter. Prasidh Krishna also picked up two wickets in the first game in Rajkot.
Predicted Teams
IND: Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill (c), Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Mohammed Siraj, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna.
NZ: Henry Nicholls, Devon Conway (wk), Will Young, Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Michael Bracewell (c), Kristian Clarke, Zakary Foulkes, Josh Clarkson, Kyle Jamieson, Adhitya Ashok.
Key Players
Shreyas Iyer (IND): Middle-order batter Shreyas Iyer is one of the most exciting players to come out of the Mumbai stables. Iyer is unorthodox but can pick up loose deliveries quickly and dispatch them to the boundary. Iyer usually plays with an open stance, which gives him the room to manoeuvre the ball onto the on-side without losing his shape too much. He can also hit the ball a long way.
Henry Nicholls (NZ): Opener Henry Nicholls is someone who can continually chip away at the Indian bowling unit. Since he can rotate the strike well, most teams do not even notice when he scores his runs, and by the end of the evening, there is usually a fifty (half-century) next to his name. The southpaw is a street-smart cricketer who can capitalise on poor bowling and also create chances himself if the need arises. Nicholls is brilliant at the top of the order.
Match Prediction
India are the favourites to win. Their strength on paper is much more than that of their opponents, and victory in the first game is bound to give their confidence a big boost. The visitors, for their part, have struggled in the middle overs with the ball and will have to quickly regroup. The surface in Rajkot may not be very different from the one found in Vadodara, and hence, the Indians will continue their domineering performance.