India v New Zealand Third Test: Expert Predictions & Analysis

India v New Zealand predictions: 

• Rohit Sharma under 76.5 match runs - 1.83 @ Rajabets Sports
• Tim Southee under 3.5 match wickets - 1.57 @ Rajabets Sports
• Yashasvi Jaiswal over 85.5 match runs - 1.83 @ Rajabets Sports

When: Friday 1 November, 9:30am IST / 5:00pm NZDT

Where: Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

Watch: Sports 18, JioCinema (India) / Sky Sport 1, Sky Sport Now (NZ)

Best Odds: India 1.38, Draw 9.00, New Zealand 4.75

Indian sports betting sites would have taken another significant hit last weekend when New Zealand won at odds of 5/1 or thereabouts, the week after their first Test triumph at double digit odds.

Despite that, India’s odds to win the third Test in Mumbai have again barely moved, increasing by less than five percent despite the team now being outclassed on separate occasions and looking short of answers all the way through. 

India needs the old guard to recapture their vintage best here in Mumbai ahead of a very important tour of Australia and cricket betting apps are forecasting Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli to score close to 76.5 runs across the match. 

We believe one of those numbers is way off the mark and, having crunched the numbers ahead of the third Test, offer to you our three best India v New Zealand predictions. 

The Numbers That Matter

• The average first innings score in Wankhede Tests is 339
• Neither Mitchell nor Blundell top scored in NZ’s last 19 innings
• Ajaz Patel took 14 wickets in the last Mumbai Test (avg. 16.07)
• Ashwin averages 7.6 wickets per Test in Mumbai and 6.5 per Test v NZ

Where to for Rohit Sharma?

There are quite a few active Test captains whose individual outputs have been well below that expected of the leader.

Think Kraigg Brathwaite, Ben Stokes and Shan Masood in October, Najmul Hossain Shanto all year and of course Rohit Sharma.

Rohit is missing the first Test in Australia for personal reasons, so if his replacement (potentially Abhimanyu Easwaran) can star in his absence, another failure here from Rohit would have his future under very intense scrutiny.

This is an opposition that has long troubled him and most recently it has culminated in just three single digits in his first four innings of this series. 

He now averages just 14 in Test cricket (eight dismissals) against the bowling attack that New Zealand fielded in Pune, and in nine of his last 11 Tests anywhere around the world saw him finish with fewer than 65 runs. 

Prediction: Rohit Sharma under 76.5 match runs - 1.83 @ Rajabets Sports

Heading south-ee in the pecking order

Recently facing accusations from some cricket circles that his captaincy was the only thing keeping him in the Test team, Tim Southee now has nowhere to hide since Tom Latham took up the captaincy permanently. 

He offered an important half-century that kept India at bay in Bengaluru and still brings valuable leadership to the side, but where he needs to deliver most - with the ball - he has fallen short on every single occasion in 2024.

Southee is on an incredibly poor run at Test level that very few other players would have survived. 

In his last 19 innings dating back to the start of a 2023 tour of Bangladesh, where they famously lost a match in Sylhet, he has taken 2+ wickets on only one occasion - 2-46 at home to Australia in Wellington. 

That’s ten straight Tests with a match return of under 3.5 wickets, so in that regard it’s remarkable that punters are so easily able to back him to do it again at a venue that isn’t especially friendly to fast bowling. 

Prediction: Tim Southee under 3.5 match wickets - 1.57 @ Rajabets Sports

Jaiswal on the up

Whilst Rohit Sharma appears set to fizzle out in this format over his twilight years, 22-year-old Yashasvi Jaiswal is just getting started. 

He’s the fourth highest scorer of the series so far but has been the most consistent when it comes to getting a start, going past 30 on three out of four occasions. 

His second innings score of 77 in Pune, when he gave New Zealand a proper fright by blasting over to a score of 90/1 just 15 overs into their ultimately unsuccessful run chase, was the fifth time in India’s last 14 innings that he produced their top score. 

Indian cricket betting sites have set him a mark of 85.5 runs for this fixture and that’s a threshold that he exceeds more than 60% of the time, so you’re getting a fair price here for him to grow and thrive on international debut at Wankhede Stadium, where he made an IPL  century in 2023 (124 from 62 balls).

Prediction: Yashasvi Jaiswal over 85.5 match runs - 1.83 @ Rajabets Sports