Debutants Papa New Guinea to take on hosts Oman in T20 WC opener

Round 1 of ICC T20 World Cup gets under way, with Group B fixture between hosts Oman and Papua New Guinea at Al Amerat Cricket Ground. In the men’s T20I team rankings, Papua New Guinea is ranked 15th while hosts are ranked three spots below Papua New Guinea at 18th.

PNG have lost both their tournament warm-up games against Ireland and Sri Lanka. Oman won their first warm-up game against Namibia before losing the second game against the Netherlands.

Head-to-head

This is the first time that Oman and Papua New Guinea are meeting in an international T20 match.

Form Guide:

Oman: W-L-W-L-W

Papua New Guinea: L-L-L-W-W

Pitch and conditions

The average first innings total at Al Amerat Cricket Ground is 151. Twenty-four games have been played on this ground. Fourteen of those games have been won by the team batting second. The last T20 game played at this venue was between the UAE and Kuwait on February 27 2020. In that match, the UAE batted first and scored a mammoth 199/5. Kuwait could only manage 97/7 in 20 overs. If that match is considered as the template, to predict what the pitch could be like, then it could be a fairly balanced pitch with something for the batters and the bowlers.

The afternoon is expected to be bright and sunny. The temperature will be around 32° C. Humidity level is expected to be around 42%.

Deccan Herald’s Dream XI:

Zeeshan Maqsood, Lega Siaka, Aqib Ilyas, Assad Vala (c), Naseem Khushi (wk), Sandeep Goud, Charles Amini, Kaleemullah, Bilal Khan, Damien Ravu, Khawar Ali.

Impact player for Oman

Bilal Khan: Oman’s Bilal Khan is a left arm pacer. He has played first-class cricket in Pakistan. In 35 T20I matches, he has picked 51 wickets. The fast bowler ranks sixth on the all-time list of bowlers to the fastest 50 wickets in T20I cricket. Bilal completed 50 T20I wickets in just 35 matches. He is the only Oman bowler to have more than 50 T20I wickets. Bilal can cause a lot of trouble to Papua New Guinea batting order.

Impact player for Papua New Guinea

Assad Vala: Papua New Guinea will look to skipper Assad Vala to lead the side. The 34-year-old has played 28 T20Is and scored 516 runs hitting three fifties. He is a decent bowler too and bowled right-arm off-breaks In the 2019 T20 World Cup Qualifiers, Vala scored 197 runs and picked 10 wickets which helped Papua New Guinea reach this stage of T20 World Cup.