New Zealand aim to bounce back in fifth ODI against Pakistan at Hamilton
Pakistan would start the fifth ODI of their series against New Zealand as favourites and that is exactly the reason which would give the Black Caps hope, as the two teams square up for the all important game at the Seddon Park, in Hamilton.
Over the years, the men in green have shown many times that they can implode spectacularly whenever they are given the favourites tag. The same happened at the start of the current series when the tourists crashed to a 9 wicket defeat, after winning the
test series against the same opponents barely a few days earlier.
The unpredictable nature of their cricket makes them fascinating to watch and that unpredictability is what Daniel Vettori and his men aim to cash in on, in a match that they need to win to keep alive the six match series.
Vettori is not yet certain of his participation in the match after he strained his hamstring muscle in the narrow loss at the McLean Park; the fourth match of the series.
He however, has hoped of a reversal in his team’s fortunes who have now lost as many as 13 of their last 14 ODIs.
"There's still an opportunity to win the series with two games coming up. I think the teams are relatively level. It's just that one individual performance wins the game." Vettori said ahead of the match at Hamilton.
The hosts would really hope to fire with the bat. They got off to a stupendous start when they knocked off the target of 125 for the loss of only a single wicket in the first game at Westpac in Wellington, since then it has gone pear shaped for the top order
that gave two ordinary performances on batting tracks at Christchurch and Napier.
Even the bowling department hasn't lived up to the start that they made at Wellington, the hosts were smashed for 293 runs at Christchurch with a staggering 126 runs coming off the last 10 overs there. In the following game the bowlers failed to defend a
score of 262, yet pushed the tourists to the brink taking 8 wickets.
The hosts hired the services of South African pace bowling legend Allan Donald at the start of the ODI series; he has not been able to come up with a strategy that can thwart the blazing bats of the Pakistani middle and lower order.
The predicament with the bat is also a worry for the coach John Wright, he wants his team to take a leaf out of Misbah-Ul-Haq’s book. The Pakistan vice-captain has struck as many as six half centuries in the test and ODI series. Two of the fifties were converted
into 90’s; he was at the forefront of the win at Napier scoring an unbeaten 93 as the tourist romped home with an over to spare.
Wright feels that his batsmen need to have a close look at his game and play with the same kind of determination and application."His was exactly the type of innings we need. I think throughout this series he's been their glue, and we probably need some
glue"
New Zealand (probable): 1 Jamie How/Jesse Ryder, 2 Martin Guptill, 3 Ross Taylor, 4 Scott Styris, 5 Kane Williamson, 6 James Franklin, 7 Brendon McCullum (wk), 8 Daniel Vettori (capt)/Jacob Oram, 9 Nathan McCullum, 10 Tim Southee, 11 Hamish
Bennett.
Pakistan (probable): 1 Ahmed Shehzad, 2 Mohammad Hafeez, 3 Kamran Akmal (wk), 4 Younis Khan, 5 Misbah-ul-Haq, 6 Umar Akmal, 7 Shahid Afridi (capt), 8 Abdul Razzaq, 9 Sohail Tanvir, 10 Wahab Riaz, 11 Umar Gul
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