With one foot in semis, New Zealand spinners set to test Brook's England

Colombo, Feb 26 (PTI) New Zealand spinners, led by their mercurial skipper Mitchell Santner, will pose some difficult questions to an English line-up spearheaded by the marauding Harry Brook when the two sides clash in a Super Eight game of the T20 World Cup here on Friday.

The match is of greater significance to the Black Caps as they bid to seal a semi-final spot while England are already through to the last four stage after logging two consecutive wins.

The huge 61-run win over Sri Lanka has elevated New Zealand's net run-rate to +3.050 and to ensure that they progress, the Kiwis have to just avoid a heavy defeat.

Pakistan, after their defeat to England, have a net run-rate of -0.461 and would not only need New Zealand to lose badly but also have to beat Sri Lanka by a heavy margin to eclipse the Black Caps' NRR.

New Zealand have shown that they are comfortable playing against as many six spinners in the match versus Sri Lanka. They actually beat the co-hosts in their own game.

While Brook and Will Jacks have both been comfortable against the likes of Saim Ayub, Mohammed Nawaz and Shadab Khan, New Zealanders Santner, Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Cole McConchie could prove to be more handy on a slightly tackier Premadasa track compared to Pallekele.

Brook is in good form, as demonstrated by his match-winning hundred against Pakistan, and the team would expect veteran Jos Buttler to up his game after having a quiet tournament so far. A good start by Buttler will put England in a strong position.

At the other end, the off-spin of Jacks and the left-arm spin of Liam Dawson could be equally challenging for the Kiwis.

At Premadasa, anything in the range of 165 to 175 can be considered a winning score if the spinners are in operation.

"You're always confident going into these fixtures, especially when we know what the surface is going to be like, but I think it'd be silly to underestimate England at any point," Black Caps all-rounder Rachin Ravindra said after his match-winning performance against Sri Lanka on Wednesday.

"They're obviously such a quality unit, and they've shown this in bowling, and how well they've been bowling. I mean, they've got world class batters throughout their order.So it's nothing necessarily like that," he added.

But he was well aware that Friday is a new day and it will be a new challenge for the New Zealand team.

"Obviously, we'll take confidence from today and move on, but realize in two days' time it's a different challenge and hopefully we can be up for it," Rachin said.

Squads: ====== England: Harry Brook (captain), Jos Buttler (wk), Tom Banton, Jacob Bethell, Phil Salt (wk), Ben Duckett, Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Jamie Overton, Rehan Ahmed, Liam Dawson, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Josh Tongue, Like Wood New Zealand: Mitchell Santner (captain), Finn Allen, Tim Seifert, Devon Conway, Mark Chapman, Cole McConchie, Daryl Mitchell, James Neesham, Rachin Ravindra, Jacob Duffy, Lockie Ferguson, Matt Henry, Kyle Jamieson, Ish Sodhi.

Match Starts: 7 pm. PTI KHS PM KHS PM PM