New Zealand seek payback after double sporting setback

First the cricket, then the rugby, and now the cricket again. England versus New Zealand is an unlikely grudge match (Kiwis tend not to hold too many grudges…) but after two bruising defeats on the biggest sporting stages of the year, the rematch is on in Christchurch on Friday as the five-match T20I series gets underway.

England travel as 50-over World Cup champions, and were finalists in the World T20 in India two years ago (less said about how that one ended the better). But for this contest they are slender outsiders, as they prepare to blood a new generation of white-ball whizzkids against a well-established opponent.

New Zealand start the series as 8/15 favourites, with England at 6/4, and are 4/5 to win the opening match, compared to England's 1/1.

Their favouritism probably resides in the form of their opener Colin Munro, who blitzed a rapid century in England's warm-up match this week, and is 5/2 - joint favourite alongside his fellow opener Martin Guptill - to top-score for the Black Caps in the opening match.

For England, keep an eye on the all-Welsh-Fire opening partnership of Jonny Bairstow and Tom Banton, the newest kid on the block, who are 3/1 and 10/3 respectively to top-score for England. And on the bowling front, keep an eye on Pat Brown, Worcestershire's bag of tricks, and Saqib Mahmood, Lancashire's pace prospect, who are 3/1 and 4/1 respectively to be England's leading bowlers.

Will this contest follow the pattern established at Lord's in July, however, and go all the way to a Super Over as well? If you believe in fate, then you've got odds of 12/1 to fall back on (not the most generous, it has to be said). On the flip side, 1/50 says that it won't … which isn't really worth a flutter either.