New Zealand vs England Prediction: Back Buttler to Bash Kiwis

Jamie Pacheco previews the 1st ODI between New Zealand and England played at on Mount Maunganui on Sunday, with a start time of 01:00 and live on TNT Sports 1.  

Jamie is putting his faith in one of cricket’s most reliable performers to get to 33 runs. And he is all about the value in the England Top Batsman market, with Jos Buttler being the stand-out price.  Check out his New Zealand vs England Predictions below...

*You can check out all of our Cricket Odds over at betfred.com

Team News:

New Zealand  

It's hard to know much about the form of most of these players because there was so little cricket played across the T20I Series.  

The big news is that Kane Williamson returns to the squad after recovering from the latest of many injuries. Some will feel that even in ODIs his strike rate isn't what it should be by modern standards, but would you leave out a man averaging 49, with 15 centuries and 47 fifties in this format? No, I wouldn't, either.  

Neither of the Tims- Robinson or Seifert – made the cut, so Tom Latham will keep wicket while Devon Conway and Will Young should open the batting. 

Their trio of fast bowlers who played in the T20I Series—Jacob Duffy, Matt Henry, and Kyle Jamieson - are included, and all three should play.  

Michael Bracewell and Mitchell Santner, the skipper, will have similar roles as key spinners who will bat in the lower middle order. It is a strong, well-balanced side.  

England 

England won the T20I Series but probably feel they didn't do much to deserve it, though the poor weather that deprived us of two of the three matches was hardly their fault.  

Joe Root will be back in business at (probably) number three with Ben Duckett and Jamie Smith expected to open and Jos Buttler and Harry Brook providing plenty of quality and power in the middle-order. There's no Phil Salt for this Series.  

That is, unless England decides that their golden boy, Jacob Bethell, should be batting at first drop.   

Sam Curran offers something different as a left-arm bowler who can bat just about anywhere. For the second spinner's spot alongside Adil Rashid, it should be a straight choice between Liam Dawson and Rehan Ahmed. A rested Jofra Archer leads the attack.  

Pitch and Conditions

We're at Mount Maunganui for this one. New Zealand have played three here since 2020, winning all of them against India, Netherlands and Pakistan respectively.  

They chased India's 296 pretty comfortably, did the same with the Netherlands' 202 and then defended 264 against Pakistan in April this year with Bracewell having an excellent all-round match with a wicket and a priceless 59 off 40.  

But more important than that is the fact we're 'guaranteed' a completed game with a rival bookmaker, making it 1/100 we end up with a result, a nice change to what's happened so far on this Tour.  

Match Winner odds. 

New Zealand are 6/5 here, or 45.5% if you prefer, which is almost exactly the same price as they were ahead of the 3rd T20I. England are 4/6, which is a 60% chance.  

You wouldn't have thought England should be warm favourites away from home if the ICC rankings are anything to go by. They're down in eighth, would you believe it, with such unlikely teams as Pakistan (5th) and Afghanistan (7th) both ahead of them.  

No such problem for the Kiwis, who sit in third with only Australia and India above them.  

In terms of stats, they've played each other five times in the last five years in ODIs with New Zealand winning two and England three.  In terms of all ODIs between them it's incredibly tight with NZ winning 45 and losing 44 of the completed matches between them. When just looking at matches played in New Zealand, it's 21 wins for the Blak Caps and 18 for England and just looking at results at this particular venue, they've only ever played here once, back in 2018 with England chasing 223 pretty easily, Ben Stokes not out on 63.  

But all things considered, you could argue there's a tiny bit of value on the hosts in light of the overall numbers. For what it's worth, I'd just about favour NZ's bowling while I think England have the better batters. But we'll leave this market alone.  

*For all the latest and live New Zealand vs England Odds then head over to betfred.com 

New Zealand - Kane Williamson Over/Under 32.5 Runs  

Kane Williamson is back. The man with the calmest temperament in international cricket, the nice guy, the skipper who congratulated England just moments after the 2019 World Cup final was over, rather than pointing out the farcical manner by which the (Tied) Super Over was decided in favour of England, based on that all-important statistic: who scored the most boundaries during the fifty overs? Or not so important, as I'm sure most of us will agree.  

But aside from his affable nature, this man is a run machine. Betfred has set his run lines at 32.5, but I'm not sure that's enough, and his stats suggest he should get over that.  

For starters, his career average is 49 in (173) ODIs and is even better against England (20 innings), averaging 54.6, and for the record, he would have cleared that 32.5 mark in 12 of his 20 appearances against England.    

There's always the concern that a player coming back from injury may be a little rusty, but then again, when you've played as much cricket as Williamson has, he'll be pretty much in autopilot from the moment he arrives at the crease. And besides, he's had plenty of injuries before so none of this is new to him. His stats suggest he has a better chance of going over 32.5 runs, than under. 

Top England Batter

For the England top batsman market, one price instantly stands out: Jos Buttler at 6/1. Yes, we know that anyone in that Top 6 boasts good numbers (at worst) and that any of them can win this heat. We also know that Buttler tends to bat in the middle-order and that if Duckett, Root, or whoever are on 100 by the time Buttler comes to the crease, it will be almost impossible for him to top that.  

But we also know that he averages 39.5, has 11 centuries and 29 fifties, is one of ODI cricket's real class acts, and that his batting position hasn't stopped him from being a top England bat plenty of times in the past. It would be better if he came in at 5 rather than at 6 the latter being the case if Bethell is at 3, but that alone won't put us off.  

Jamie Pacheco Cricket P/L 2025:

• Points Staked: 115 
• Points Returned: 105.41 
• Current P/L: -8.59 

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket and European Football for us at Betfred Insights. You can check out his Cricket Betting Tips, along with those from the rest of the team, at our Cricket hub page...