Australia’s focus at the moment is on the upcoming four-Test tour of India, where it has not won a Test since 2004. New Zealand also have a fully-charged pace battery, which has Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Matt Henry. With 386, 299 and 367 runs in the series against South Africa, New Zealand and Pakistan, respectively, Warner has leapfrogged the likes of AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli to be the king of the mountain in ODIs. To strengthen their batting, Australia have added Aaron Finch and Shaun Marsh to face New Zealand.
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That being said, with the return of former skipper Ross Taylor to bolster the batting and the miniscule boundary size of Eden Park suiting the likes of big-hitting pair Martin Guptill and Colin Munro, New Zealand should be far more potent as team in home conditions.
Match starts at 11 am local time (10 pm GMT on January 29).
David Warner has been in sublime form in ODIs in 2016/17.
Mathew Wade appointed Australian captain in place of injured Steve Smith for NZ tour.
What to expect: The forecast is for plenty of sunshine in Auckland thus runs should be in the offering.
Australia have left out legspinner Adam Zampa and fast bowler Billy Stanlake, along with Wade.
New Zealand: The hosts won’t field a specialist wicketkeeper with opener Tom Latham to wear the gloves in game one.
Australia are beatable no doubt but in order for New Zealand to beat them they will have to overcome the psychological hold the men in gold have over them.
“They think it’s just a medial ligament sprain but I’m having an MRI.to see if there’s any more damage”, he said. “When you do, they perform a lot better”.
The name of the series derived from cricketing families from the two countries, the Chappell brothers (Ian, Gregory, and Trevor) of Australia and Walter Hadlee and his three sons, (Barry, Dayle and Sir Richard), of New Zealand.
After Australia elected to bat, Warner could have been dismissed from the first ball of the match but an airborne Azhar Ali spilled the edge at second slip off Mohammad Amir.
With this series only consisting of three matches, either side could go a long way to claiming the Chappell-Hadlee trophy with a victory today.
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– Aaron Finch, making a comeback, has the worst average against New Zealand among all opposition – 7.20.
