New Zealand target Super Eights spot after SA blip

At the end of that game between New Zealand and South Africa, one team was always going to have to wait longer to officially confirm their progression in the ongoing T20 World Cup. Both New Zealand and South Africa saw off Afghanistan, the team that could have potentially derailed their campaign. With the UAE and Canada being the other two outfits in this group, it was just a matter of time. And given the two top seeds in the group were going to face the two associates in their final league fixture, that cushion was always present. Afghanistan defeating UAE on expected lines has only made the equation simpler with South Africa's spot in the next round now guaranteed.

While there are no guarantees in sport, this should still be a mere formality for New Zealand. They have shown good form in the tournament so far despite the blip against South Africa and they will now be returning to familiar territory for this clash against Canada. Some of the players in that squad have played multiple games here in Chennai in the past. Even in the two games they played here in this edition, New Zealand were quite ruthless. 183 was chased down quite comfortably against Afghanistan and the two openers - Tim Seifert and Finn Allen - pulled off a demolition job over the UAE. A repeat is very much on the cards on Tuesday.

Canada haven't exactly caved in so far in the tournament. They managed to recover from 45/4 against South Africa to eventually post more than 150 despite the loss and also put themselves in a very good position to beat UAE at one stage before going down in the final over of the fixture. If they are to challenge New Zealand, their batters will have to fare a lot better than what they have done so far.

What to expect: Another pitch that's good to bat on. We have seen good surfaces so far at Chepauk in this tournament. New Zealand have already played a 11 AM game here just a few days ago to kickstart their campaign. Now that we are in mid-February, the temperatures are slowly on the rise.

"The injury was a bit of a blessing in disguise at the end of the day. I'd been playing cricket for a couple of years on the bounce. So fatigue obviously does become a big factor with the nature of the calendar that we have these days. So for me to be able to have a little bit of stuff outside of cricket, go get my pilot's license, to be able to work on my strength, and also then to be able to try and understand that my body is not the same as it was when I was 23." - Glenn Phillips on the time he spent away from the game while nursing an injury

"Definitely I'm happy to come back to Chennai and in one week I can see the difference with the weather also. Last week when we were here it was a little bit cooler but now it's getting hot and just we need to cope up with that and just play the game." - Shreyas Movva on Canada returning to Chennai for their final two fixtures

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