Indore: India Legends will face upbeat New Zealand Legends in match number 12 of the Road Safety World Series 2022 on Monday at Holkar Stadium, Indore, Madhya Pradesh.
Fans in India’s cleanest city have been waiting with bated breaths to catch a glimpse of their favourite stars of yesteryears on the cricket pitch.
The Sachin Tendulkar-led side will be the show stopper of the Indore leg of the T20 tournament. The city of Indore will forever hold a special place for Tendulkar, as the batting maestro completed 10000 ODI runs here in 2001. India Legends played the season opener in Kanpur which they won convincingly against South Africa Legends but their next game against West Indies was washed out due to rain at Green Park.
Against South Africa Legends in their first game, the India Legends registered a massive 61-run win and ticked off almost every box with their clinical show.
Opening the batting for India Legends, Tendulkar and Naman Ojha will be looking to give the team a good start against New Zealand bowlers, who despite a good start failed to contain Bangladeshi batters in a rain-hit match. However, the batters won the game easily.
Against New Zealand, the Indore crowd would be expecting an entertaining knock from the master blaster, and from the likes of Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh. Stuart Binny and Yusuf Pathan – who were the heroes for India in the opening game – will also look to give New Zealand bowlers a run for their money.
India’s bowling department looks balanced as it has a decent pace attack in Irfan Pathan, Manpreet Gony, and Munaf Patel while the spin department looks equally potent due to the presence of Pragyan Ojha and Rahul Sharma.
New Zealand Legends – who are making their debut in the tournament – came back strongly after the defeat in the opening game and registered a comprehensive 8-wicket win over Bangladesh in their first game of the Indore leg.
Making a strong comeback from their first game in which their batting looked toothless, captain Ross Taylor, Dean Brownlie, and Jamie How scored valuable runs in the chase against Bangla Tigers to open their account in the points tally. Kyle Mills and Hamish Bennett bowled well in the powerplay but the rest of the bowlers looked ineffective. Against a dominant Indian batting lineup, the Kiwi Legends will have to bring their A-Game.
India and New Zealand have faced each other in 20 T20Is and of these, the Men in Blue won 11 whereas the BlackCaps have come out victorious on 9 occasions.
