New Zealand choose to bat vs England
New Zealand have won the toss and opted to bat first in their T20 World Cup Super-Eight clash with England.
Mitchell Santner’s decision comes with some serious turn on offer as evidenced in their victory over Sri Lanka. The match will be played on the same Premadasa Stadium pitch where New Zealand won by 61 runs, eliminating the co-hosts from progressing in the tournament.
They have named an unchanged side for this game and, while victory will put them through to the semi-finals as leaders of the group, Santner was initially focused on the task at hand.
“You have to win games if you want to win World Cups, so first things first,” he said. “The pitch does look the same. It looked pretty good last game, it spun more than we thought.”
England, meanwhile, made one change, replacing seamer Jamie Overton with legpisnner Rehan Ahmed, making his first appearance of the tournament, in a side already guaranteed to progress to the next phase.
Harry Brook, their captain, said he would maintain his promotion at No. 3, which yielded a 50-ball century in their last match, a two-wicket victory over Pakistan.
“We would have won the toss and batted as well,” Brook said. “We watched the game the other night and it spun a bit.
“My main message is to go out there play with freedom and look to take it to them. I think we’ve fielded amazing through the tournament, there was a bit of mis-execution in the last game.”
If England win, they will top the group with six points and Pakistan will remain in the hunt for a semi-finals berth, although they will have to overcome a significant NRR deficit.
New Zealand: 1 Tim Seifert (wk), 2 Finn Allen, 3 Rachin Ravindra, 4 Glenn Phillips, 5 Daryl Mitchell, 6 Mark Chapman, 7 Mitchell Santner (capt), 8 Cole McConchie, 9 Matt Henry, 10 Ish Sodhi, 11 Lockie Ferguson
England: 1 Phil Salt, 2 Jos Buttler (wk), 3 Harry Brook (capt), 4 Jacob Bethell, 5 Tom Banton, 6 Sam Curran, 7 Will Jacks, 8 Rehan Ahmed, 9 Liam Dawson, 10 Jofra Archer, 11 Adil Rashid
