After being given a wee bit of a hiding in the T20I series against Pakistan, Aotearoa's Blackcaps are nicely poised heading into the third and final ODI with a win in the first game along with strong performances across the two games thus far. That the series is locked at 1-1, provides us with the chance to see which individuals stand up in the decider and whether this team under Gary Stead can suss out some killer instinct as we keep the World Cup in mind.

The great news is that Ross Taylor is still King Rossco. Only three 50+ scores have been hit by the kiwis and two have come from Taylor going back to back, while the other was a nifty 68 off 64 deliveries from Tom Latham. Outside of those innings, the Blackcaps have been unable to cash in on starts and of greater concern is the lack of runs from certain individuals, stretching back to the T20I series.

Pakistan Vs New Zealand | 1st ODI | Highlights | 7 November 2018 | PCB Welcome to Pakistan Cricket Board Official Page. Get All The Updates Regarding Pakistan Cricket Here. All the Happening in Pakistan can be caught up here. You can get players interviews, match highlights, Practice Sessions, Press Conference, Celebrations.

Pakistan Vs New Zealand | 2nd ODI | Highlights | 9 November 2018 | PCB Welcome to Pakistan Cricket Board Official Page. Get All The Updates Regarding Pakistan Cricket Here. All the Happening in Pakistan can be caught up here. You can get players interviews, match highlights, Practice Sessions, Press Conference, Celebrations.

Taylor has hit scores of 80 and 86, which have come with an overall strike-rate of 71.55 and we only need to compare that to Latham's strike-rate of 97.18 to see the role Taylor's played in the batting line up. Nothing makes me happier than runs from Taylor and late in his career, we are seeing Taylor continue ooze world-class funk and if anything Taylor is getting even better. As of right now and perhaps over the past 24 months, Taylor has re-affirmed himself as Aotearoa's best batsman.

The low key note on Taylor is how he has demanded T20I opportunities after being shunned from the Blackcaps T20I group by Lesson and Taylor's class is evident in how he has slid between the two formates in United Arab Emirates. His resurgence in T20I cricket has come with Taylor being used primarily as a finisher, late in the innings where he had a strike-rate of 126.82 in the T20I series vs Pakistan.

Come ODI cricket and Taylor has had to anchor the innings, twice coming to the crease before the 10 over mark to be dismissed after the 40th over or to finish not-out. The circumstance around Taylor playing this specific role isn't ideal, however the way in which Taylor has held the innings together has to be celebrated and as the statesman of a kinda young-ish group, Taylor is flourishing as the alpha wolf.

In game one, Colin Munro and Kane Williamson both faced over 30 balls. In game two, George Worker faced 50 balls and Henry Nicholls faced 63 balls. None of those innings yielded more than 35 runs and while it's clearly tough to bat for the cute little kiwis over in UAE against a delightful Pakistan bowling attack, the hard work has been done in each of those innings by batsmen who are good enough to cash in.

Worker has opened alongside Munro in both innings and although Worker hasn't made much of an impact, all we want here is consistent opportunities for Worker. There will be failures and hopefully some knocks where Worker can flex, but ultimately we need to judge Worker over a bigger sample size. Munro on the other hand, appears to be showing what makes him a weird opener in ODI cricket.

Munro is still playing this wannabe B-Mac role, yet he's not B-Mac ... no one is. 29 off 27 and 13 off 10 are typical Munro innings, where he has a whack and while he smacks a few boundaries, none of them appear overly dominant, or classy. Such hostile batting means that Munro is walking the fine line and the decision to be made ahead of the World Cup is whether those quick little knocks are worth losing a quick little wicket.

In 12inns throughout 2018, Munro has gone 50+ twice and 6inns have seen Munro score less than 10. This all depends on how you view the risk associated with Munro and that risk changes dramatically when Martin Guptill is absent; suddenly Munro becomes the senior opener, but has to play the same Munro role.

Colin de Grandhomme is having a rough time in UAE, having scored 16 runs from 3 T20I innings and now 3 runs from 2 ODI innings. He's not even scoring those runs quickly and a strike-rate of 72.72 in the T20I series is horrible for CDG, let alone 21.42sr in the ODI series. Unlike the top-order, de Grandhomme has a bit more wiggle room down the batting line up and we all know how de Grandhomme bats, so there shouldn't be any surprises when he suffers a lean patch.

Whether or not this lean patch turns into CDG being exposed, is perhaps the most intriguing narrative of the kiwi summer. De Grandhomme can contribute with the ball and 2w in 14ov @ 3.92rpo in the two ODI games thus far is handy for an all-rounder, which could be viewed as the opposite to Ish Sodhi who has contributed with the bat in hitting 24 off 19 and 13 off 11 late in the innings.

Sodhi hasn't been terrible with the ball, taking 2w in 15ov @ 5rpo. Just like de Grandhomme is finding a way to contribute with the ball while he ain't scoring runs, Sodhi is adding some runs down the order while he doesn't quite have the impact with the ball that he's otherwise want.

The main issue with the ball, is a lad bowling 18.3 overs and taking 1w. Tim Southee came off a T20I series in which he took 1w in 12ov and is again struggling to impact these 50-over games, which to be straight up makes you wonder why Ajaz Patel hasn't been given a crack considering that the Blackcaps are operating with only Sodhi as the main spinner. The best bowlers in this series are seamers, with 18-year-old phenom Shaheen Shah Afridi leading all the bowlers with 8w @ 4.94rpo, followed by Lockie Ferguson's 6w @ 4.96rpo and then we see a spinner in Shadab Khan who has 5w @ 3.15rpo.

One would assume that Khan would be better than Sodhi, based mainly on local knowledge and experience in these conditions. The key point here though is that Pakistan have had 49 overs from spinners (Khan, Mohammad Hafeez and Imad Wasim), while Aotearoa have had 16 overs from spin. I'm not suggesting that this is good or bad, I just find it interesting and how that reliance on spin or lack of, impacts the decider will be something to keep a close eye on.

If we take ourselves out of this ODI series bubble and take a geeze at the bigger picture, this doesn't really matter. Lockie Ferguson is making a strong case for further selection this summer and then in seam-friendly conditions of England for the World Cup, while Mitchell Santner will also come back into the mix. That puts pressure on someone like de Grandhomme and/or Tim Southee, who also have Matt Henry sniffing around for an opportunity and I again wind up, pondering how this Blackcaps ODI team may change dramatically over the summer.

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Peace and love 27.