Benedict Bermange looks at the key stats and stories ahead of the T20 World Cup final in Dubai; watch New Zealand take on Australia in Sunday's showpiece, live from 1pm on Sky Sports Cricket and Main Event
Saturday 13 November 2021 09:10, UK
The final of ICC T20 WC 2021 will be a Trans-Tasman affair after the two second-placed group teams made it through the semi-finals to set up a repeat of the 2015 World Cup final, which Australia won convincingly.
In fact, that match went the way of all their knockout meetings in ICC competitions:
This will be Australia's first ICC T20 World Cup final since they lost to England in 2010 in the Caribbean. For the Kiwis, this is their first visit to a final, following semi-final defeats in 2007 and 2016.
In all Twenty20 International cricket, the teams have met on 14 occasions, with Australia holding a 9-5 lead.
However, their most recent meetings came between February 22 and March 7 this year, when New Zealand won their five-match series 3-2 with victory by seven wickets in the deciding fifth match at Mount Maunganui.
There have been 12 matches played at Dubai in the tournament to date, with only one of them won by the team batting first, and 11 won by the chasing team.
The only team to buck that trend was New Zealand, who defeated Scotland by 16 runs on November 3. However, that trend is very much a recent one.
Of the total of 74 Twenty20 Internationals played on the ground, 36 have been won batting first, with 38 batting second.
With all that being said, there have only been two successful chases of a target of greater than 155 on the ground in 22 attempts, the second of which was Australia's semi-final chase.
Spin has had very much the edge at Dubai in the tournament to date, as evidenced by Shadab Khan's performance in the semi-final for Pakistan:
Comparing both teams by phases of the game, Australia's batting has had the edge in terms of runs per over, but so has New Zealand's bowling. New Zealand's overall economy rate in the competition has been 6.75 per over, the best of all the 16 teams to have participated.
Trent Boult is the leading seam bowler in the competition, with 11 wickets at 14.09 with an economy rate of 6.54. Tim Southee has taken eight wickets and conceded better than a run-a-ball, going at just 5.75 runs per over.
For Australia, Adam Zampa leads the way with 12 wickets, second only to Wanindu Hasaranga, who had the benefit of the first round to help him.
New Zealand might slightly worry about their batting power, as 85 per cent of Twenty20 matches are won by the team hitting more boundaries and of the four semi-finalists, they hit by far the fewest proportion of boundaries:
Australia are a settled side, with the same team playing five of their six matches to date, with the only change being Ashton Agar replacing Mitchell Marsh for the England match on October 30.
New Zealand have also used only 12 players, with their last five matches featuring unchanged sides after Adam Milne came in for Tim Seifert.
However, they will need to shuffle their pack after Devon Conway broke a bone in his hand after striking his bat following his dismissal in the semi-final victory over England.
Watch live coverage of the ICC T20 World Cup final live on Sky Sports Cricket from 1pm on Sunday.
