India v New Zealand Second Test: Expert Predictions & Analysis

India v New Zealand predictions: 

• New Zealand opening partnership under 18 runs - 2.05 @ Rajabets Sports
• Tom Latham under 45.5 match runs - 1.83 @ Rajabets Sports
• Rachin Ravindra over 62.5 match runs - 1.83 @ Rajabets Sports

When: Thursday 24 October, 9:30am IST

Where: Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune

Watch: Sports 18, JioCinema

Best Odds: India 1.33, Draw 7.00, New Zealand 6.00

New Zealand’s first Test win in India since 1988 has thrown this series wide open and given India a rattle as they look to win as many World Test Championship games as they can before their tour of Australia. 

Whether it be the first test at home to England earlier this year, their innings defeat to South Africa just weeks before that, or even losing a series-opening T20I in Zimbabwe days after the T20 World Cup, India have a proven ability to ensure their worst performances are a one-off.

Even their 18 consecutive Test series victories on home soil includes three separate instances of the tourists having gone 1-0 up in the series, albeit all in four or five Test marathons against Australia and England.

To extend that streak to 19, they face the task of having to win twice in Maharashtra, including their first Test in Pune 2019 since demolishing South Africa by an innings in 2019. 

With no prospect of rain throughout the entirety of the match, the win odds for both teams with cricket betting sites have reduced dramatically, with New Zealand’s price halving from 10/1 to 5/1 in fractional odds and India now being near-unbackable favourites. 

Perhaps that’s because it has been 12 years since India last suffered consecutive Test defeats at home, further underlining that they just don’t string together bad performances. 

The Numbers That Matter

• The last two Ranji Trophy seasons had an average batting average of 40 in Pune
• Rishabh Pant scored 50+ in nine of 17 innings in India
• Virat Kohli made 254* in the last Pune Test
• Will O’Rourke dismissed KL Rahul twice from seven balls in the last match

A fragile start to New Zealand’s first innings

We’ll again be opting for an all-in approach that has worked for us with great success throughout 2024, starting with a look at New Zealand’s fragile opening partnership.

Tom Latham and Devon Conway have both sustained below-average form in difficult Asian conditions during 2024 and beyond, which as a result has seen them broken up far more quickly than they’d like. 

We’ll be focusing on Latham in detail later as we back him to have another bad match, but Conway has also struggled for consistency at Test level around the world, with his flourishing 91 in Bengaluru an exception rather than the norm. 

He has registered fewer than 20 runs in two-thirds of Test knocks this year, contributing to five of New Zealand’s seven opening partnerships being worth single digits.

Take note that this market applies only to the first team innings, where the Indians are averaging 38 runs per opening partnership across 2024. 

Prediction: NZ opening partnership under 18 runs - 2.05 @ Rajabets Sports

Latham on the slide

Latham has been producing progressively worse numbers against spin in recent years, and whilst his nemesis Ravichandran Ashwin was uncharacteristically off-colour in Bengaluru, he was still deeply troubled by Kuldeep Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah, succumbing cheaply LBW to both bowlers.

The BCCI has instructed the Pune ground staff to produce a pitch that aids spinners to counter the Blackcaps trio of Southee/Henry/O’ Rourke and instead favour the three slow bowlers they’re likely to retain from the first Test. 

The captain’s otherwise impressive career average of 45 against spin has dropped steadily to 30 when excluding games prior to 2022, whilst since the start of 2023 he has been dismissed 13 times by slow bowlers at an average of less than 21. 

Indian betting apps have set him a modest 45.5 run mark for the match but we’re expecting him to fail to exceed even that, based not only on his career average of 14 against Ashwin and Kuldeep but also his failure to go beyond 30 runs in seven of his last ten Tests. 

Prediction: Tom Latham under 45.5 match runs - 1.83 @ Rajabets Sports

Rachin living up to his almost-namesakes

Rachin Ravindra’s Indian father dispelled the urban legend that his son’s name is a portmanteau of Rahul (Dravid) and Sachin (Tendulkar), but the New Zealand prodigy has been channelling the strokeplay of both legends across multiple formats recently.

Despite last week being just his tenth career Test, he looked by far the most assured and authoritative of the New Zealand order, particularly against the spinners where he scored an astonishing 130 runs from 130 balls with just one dismissal - a top edge from a fatigued slog sweep when he was accelerating the scoring after reaching triple figures.

The tension of the fourth innings run chase didn’t alter his positive approach one bit and his judgement of length against spin was particularly excellent. 

Ravindra has an over/under mark of 62.5 runs for this Test with many cricket betting apps and it’s a number that he has exceeded in three of his last four Tests. 

Now boasting 268 runs at an average of 89 in all formats against India’s last bowling attack on Indian soil, he appears the most likely of the New Zealand batters to exceed their over/under threshold. 

Prediction: Rachin Ravindra over 62.5 match runs - 1.83 @ Rajabets Sports