England look to bounce back

What a surprise. Just when you think England will put their foot down and play well in a one-day series against a side whose preparation was appalling, they go and play like amateurs and hand New Zealand a 1-0 lead in the five-match one-day series.

It's hard to imagine anyone, even England, playing so poorly as they did on Saturday and they will surely play better in the second match of the series, to be played in Hamilton on Tuesday.

New Zealand are now slight favourites to win the series at 8/11, a price that in itself shows just how week bet365 believe they are. England are even money.

If anything, the first match just proves, if we didn't already know, that England are entirely untrustworthy when it comes to one-day cricket, in particular. Every time they look set to prosper, they find a way to mess it up.

So to the second match, in Hamilton. England are still 8/13 (1.61) favourites to win it - and square the series - while New Zealand are 6/5. On paper, England are by far the better side but their failure to find a couple of openers who can set the tone for the rest really holds them back. A total of 34 when Alastair Cook fell, after almost 10 overs, is pathetic, by anyone's standards.

Quite honestly, I have no idea who will win this match and the best advice is to wait for the most important stuff of all, the Test series, where class should win out.

But if you have to have a bet on this one, I'd probably go for New Zealand, since 6/5 is a reasonable price against a team as hapless as England. One good innings from Kevin Pietersen and it's a different story, of course, but you can't bet on that hope alone.

If you do feel that Pietersen is going to score big - and we all know he can, and probably will at some stage in the series - then it's probably better to take the 7/1 for him to be man of the match. If he hits a big score, he'll almost certainly win the award.