Papua New Guinea vs Afghanistan Predictions & Betting tips - ICC Men's T20 World Cup

Prediction published on 04/06/2024, 04:44  by Devesh Jaganath | Modified on 05/06/2024 at 03:50

Match 9 in the 2024 T20 World Cup will see Papua New Guinea take on Uganda at the Providence Stadium on Thursday afternoon. Both sides have played one game each but are still in search of their first victory in this competition. This is one of the more intriguing matchups in the tournament as it will see one of these sides claim their first-ever World Cup win. Papua New Guinea took on co-hosts West Indies in their tournament opener and would have taken plenty of positives from their performance. Batting first, they posted just 136/8 in their 20 overs, with Sese Bau notching up a half-century. However, the more impressive part of their showing came with ball in hand, as they strangled the West Indian top-order and were right in the contest until the final few overs. Assad Vala was the pick of the bowlers, taking 2/28, while John Kariko delivered a very impressive 1/17 in his four-over allotment. Based on performance from the first round of matches, PNG are worthy favourites in this one. 

Meanwhile, Uganda’s first T20 World Cup match did not go as planned, as they suffered a significant defeat at the hands of Afghanistan. The Afghans set them a target of 183, but they were only able to respond by making a mere 58 runs before being bowled out in just 16 overs. While there was nothing to write home about in terms of batting performances, there were a couple of decent bowling contributions, with Brian Masaba picking up 2/21 while Cosmas Kyewuta took 2/25. Uganda have now won just one of their last four games in all competitions, which was against Ghana at the African Games back in March, and it’s difficult to see them getting anything from this group.