Free cricket betting tips: England taken to bounce back against New Zealand
Cricket expert Richard Mann hasn't lost faith in England and expects the visitors to show their true colours in the second match of the ODI series at the Bay Oval.
Recommended bets: New Zealand v England 2nd ODI
2pts England to win the second ODI at 4/5
0.5pts Chris Woakes to be named Man of the Match at 20/1
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England and New Zealand resume battle in the second ODI at the Bay Oval on Wednesday.
England were humbled by the home side when succumbing to a three-wicket defeat in the first match of the series on Sunday but Eoin Morgan's team are fancied to bounce back with current odds of 4/5 making plenty of appeal.
While England fans have every right to be disappointed with Sunday's result, the visitors were disadvantaged having lost the toss and being forced to bowl last, the bowlers clearly struggling to operate with a wet ball caused by heavy dew at Hamilton Park.
Nevertheless, they still dominated for large periods of the game and would have expected to set New Zealand much more than 285 to win when cruising along at 89-1 in their innings.
Joe Root will have no doubt been frustrated not to convert his 71 into something more substantial but it was still a solid start to the tour for the Yorkshireman who was tipped to be top series batsmen in my series preview beforehand.
Morgan and Ben Stokes produced underwhelming returns with the bat but it was encouraging to see the latter back in an England shirt and he would later prove to be the pick of the bowling attack, his eight overs rewarded with a couple of wickets.
Aside from Jos Buttler, who produced a strong late assault in the opening affair, head coach Trevor Bayliss will be demanding much more from his batting line up and a positive response can be expected on Wednesday with the selectors having the option of recalling Alex Hales should the incumbents fail to fire again.
New Zealand have a few issues of their own, though, with Ross Taylor and Tom Latham needing to perform a rescue act on Sunday following a top order collapse that had seen the home side reduced to 27-3.
Failures for Martin Guptill, Colin Munro and captain Kane Williamson left New Zealand with a mountain to climb and it took a fine hundred from Taylor and 79 from Latham, who was highlighted in my series head-to-head column, to keep them in the hunt before Mitchell Santner got them over the line in the final over.
England will be buoyed by those moral victories and will know that if they can continue to keep Guptill and Williamson quiet, the home side won't find it easy to get themselves out of jail again.
Despite an expensive final over, leg-spinner Adil Rashid was impressive once more and Tom Curran bowled superbly at the death, belying his inexperience with another wholehearted display.
With Mark Wood an injury doubt for the second match, England will need that pair to come to the fore again but Morgan's box-office players will be the ones with most to prove and a strong response from the likes of Roy, Stokes, Moeen Ali and Chris Woakes can be expected.
It is worth remembering that England's ODI outfit came into this series on the back of a brilliant 4-1 defeat of Australia in their own backyard, and with recent performances having seen them catapulted into 7/2 favouritism for the next World Cup, they shouldn't be given up on after one bad result.
Woakes made a welcome return to England colours in Sunday's defeat, having missed the recently concluded Trans-Tasman Tri-Series, and produced an impressive opening spell which saw him take out the two Kiwi openers.
With his fine lower-order batting something that England have come to rely on in the last few years, the Warwickshire all-rounder could be worth a small interest to be named Man of the Match at 20/1.
Man in focus: Colin de Grandhomme
The all-rounder made little impact in the first game of the series on Sunday, sending down four innocuous overs and scoring only two with the bat. de Grandhomme doesn't usually stay quiet for long, though, and his destructive power hitting offers a daunting threat to the tourists that Pakistan can vouch for only too well. He powered 74 not out from only 40 balls when New Zealand played host to the Pakistanis back in January and added a quickfire unbeaten 29 three days later. For a player who tends to be given licence in the death overs, his ODI numbers - an average of 45.57 at a strike-rate 111.92 - read very well and he has the potential to hurt England if having a solid foundation to accelerate from. His medium pacers can be pretty handy, too.
Posted at 1920 GMT on 26/02/18