New Zealand - Afghanistan Predictions & Betting tips - ICC Men's T20 World Cup

Prediction published on 06/06/2024, 06:44  by Devesh Jaganath | Modified on 06/06/2024 at 08:09

Saturday’s ICC T20 World Cup action gets underway with New Zealand taking on Afghanistan at the Providence Stadium. This will be New Zealand’s first game of the competition, while Afghanistan currently lead Group C with two points.  The Black Caps have been drawn into a tricky group, and most feel that the top two spots will be contested between these two teams as well as the West Indies. New Zealand have not been in the best form leading up to the World Cup, having drawn a five-match warmup series 2-2 with Pakistan while they suffered a 3-0 whitewash against neighbours Australia back in February. Nevertheless, they have a knack for finding ways to reach the latter stages of these competitions, as they showed in the previous edition, where they reached the semi-final before they were narrowly beaten by the Shaheens. The Black Caps are ranked fifth in the world according to ICC T20 rankings and are the bookmakers' favourites in this one. 

Meanwhile, Afghanistan got their T20 World Cup campaign started on a positive note as they romped to victory against newcomers Uganda on Tuesday. Batting first, the Blue Tigers set a solid 184-run target, with Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran top-scoring for the team with 76(45) and 70(46), respectively. However, the performance of the match came from the bowling unit where Fazalhaq Farooqi bagged a fifer and allowed a mere nine runs in his four overs. Farooqi was backed up superbly by Naveen-ul-Haq (2/4) and Rashid Khan (2/12). The Afghans dismissed their opponents for just 58 runs in 16 overs to take the lead in the group with a very healthy net run rate of +6.250. They now face a much sterner opponent in New Zealand, though, who are ranked five places above them in the world standings. These two have only met twice before in T20 internationals, with New Zealand winning one while the second match was washed out.