Sports Blog 30/03/2016: T20 World Cup Semi-Final Preview – England vs New Zealand, Wednesday 30th March 2016

After 2 dismal tournaments England are in their first T20 World Cup semi-final since they won the whole thing back in 2010; can their solid run continue against an unbeaten New Zealand at 2.30pm on Sky Sports 2?

Bouncing back from their opening 6 wicket setback against the West Indies (who themselves saw an ignoble 6 run in their final dead rubber match against Afghanistan) England went on to secure impressive victories over South Africa (with the highest successful run chase in the competition’s history), Afghanistan (a game not without a few wobbles) and Sri Lanka.



Joe Root, unsurprisingly, remains the country’s top run scorer, his 168 (including a match-winning 83 against the Proteas) the 2nd best of those players still left in the competition, behind only Virat Kohli’s 184 (who almost single-handedly spurred India onto their dramatic semi-final sealing victory over the Aussies). Root, then, is at Player Performance spread of 32-36 (with 1 point for a run, 10 for a catch, 20 for a wicket and 25 for a stumping), bested only by Jos Buttler (himself scoring 66 against Sri Lanka) who heads into Wednesday afternoon at 36-40.

Whilst England might be having a better than expected tournament, New Zealand have arguably been in a different league, escaping a tough Group 2 without a single point dropped to reach their first semi-final since the inaugural competition back in 2007. New Zealand’s most momentous victory came in their opening game, beating favourites India (who are at 11/10 to win the whole thing against the Black Caps’ 3/1 and England’s 15/4) by a whopping 57 runs.



They followed that up with a lean 8 run win over Australia, before Martin Guptill (who goes into the semi-final with a Player Performance spread of 33-37) led them to a 22 run victory against Pakistan. Despite having already qualified the Black Caps showed no signs of slowing down in their final group game, demolishing Bangladesh by 75 runs, the Tigers the only side not to pick up a point in the Super 10 stage of the competition.

Yet despite the Black Caps rampant form our Spreadex traders are expecting a tight game, offering a slender New Zealand/England Supremacy spread of 0-8, the latter at 44.4-50 to win the match against the former’s 50-55.6.

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