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Morning all
Thought I’d try my hand at the kind of ongoing selection popular in the lays and plays area, though with a cricket theme (if this is the wrong place for it, happy to move it).
If there’s one thing worse than being talked about, it’s not being talked about, as the man said, so please feel free to hurl abuse (suitably moderated of course) comments and general mockery in the direction of this thread. My aim is to hopefully make a profit, share information and inject a little discipline into my cricket betting.
Anyway, enough waffle.
Today is all about the Stanford Silly Series finale, and distasteful as the whole expedition has been, there are still some scraps of betting opportunities lying around. Having already backed the Superstars at around 11-8, I’m not going in again yet but can’t see why they are still odds against this morning, or rather why England are odds-on. In this most volatile of cricket formats, better teams have less time to bring their class to bear and in any case, there must be some doubt as to whether KP’s men are indeed the better team, certainly when morale and fitness are taken into account.
I do like Sylvester Joseph for the top Superstars batsman and Paul Collingwood for top England willow merchant. Joseph has a cool head, has looked good in two outings so far, rotates the strike well and can hit a fierce six. Collingwood is golden on these stodgy pitches, finds the gaps nicely and above all is good under pressure, a must in a nervy game like this.
I’ve also been following the ICL with increasing interest and think I’ve spotted some value in the price of the Dhaka Warriors to win the tournament. They are the most unexposed of the teams, have a great team spirit and their enthusiasm and energy was much in evidence as they thrashed Chandigargh yesterday. Momentum is important in these tournaments and they are looking good.
And I’ll have something on Nicky Boje to top score for Hyderabad against Delhi today. He usually bats at five, but with Kemp and Rayadu ahead of him in poor form, he should have plenty of overs to play with and has been thoroughly consistent for them so far
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Sylvester Joseph top Stanford bat @ 8-1 (Boylesports)
Paul Collingwood top England bat @ 10-1 (Bet Direct)
Dhaka Warriors to win ICL @ 14-1 (Boylesports)
Nicky Boje top Hyderabad bat @ 8-1 (Bet365)i look forward to reading this thread and picking your brain Andrew.
In a sick way i’m quite looking forward to the circus tonight. I feel sorry for the position of the England team as no matter what, they’re going to get stick, they’ll have to lick Stanford ar*e whilst getting rodgerred by the media.
I can’t help feeling that with the pressure on, the youngsters in the SSS’s may choke. Gayle is yet to bat any time this series and after watching Chanderpaul at Durham this year, his 20/20 form hasn’t exactly been eye opening. With these points in mind i’m with England if i can get anywhere near 10/11 especially if they bat first.
I think the SSS biggest weakness is the presence of Chanderpaul and Sarwan. Neither are great T20 players. Chanderpaul is possibly my favourite cricketer and he does have brutality in him but he has to be roused. Gayle and Fletcher could both go early and the pressure will be on Shiv and Sarwan to get momentum going. That said they were pretty impressive on Thursday night and they have been training for this for weeks.
England are also not in the best shape. They seem to have been most affected by all the nonsense this week and one or two of them will still be drained from the stomach bug they picked up. A lot may depend on how well Swann does as the second spinner.
After a short break I’ve returned from the wilderness to contemplate a veritable feast of cricket related action. There’s England in India, the ICL, NZ in Australia, South Africa against Bangladesh, the Sheffield Shield etc.
But first a couple of words on England’s Rajkot flop. Tactically naive. Undercooked. In fact, I can’t decide which was the main culprit. A plan that relied on four quicks or the fact that the quicks in question couldn’t stick to the plan.
In the normal course of events, 4-1 about a team only one nil down and rated better than the opposition in the official rankings would get my punting juices flowing but on this occasion, I will be restraining myself. I want to see signs of a plan B before committing and in it’s absence, I can’t be sure that the 4-1 is value at all. I do like the look of Owais Shah to be top series batsman for England at 9-1. KP’s very short odds are making the market and there is some value to be had on the Middlesex man.
And over in the ICL, I’ve been impressed by the competitiveness of the cricket. The first final between Lahore and Hyderabad was hearty stuff though I’m a bit surprised that the bookies are making Lahore quite so strong favourites. With very little between these two, I think there’s some mileage in backing Hyderabad to win the second final tomorrow and also the whole tournament.
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Owais Shah top England series batsman @ 9-1 (various)
Hyderabad to beat Lahore @ 5-4 (various)
Hyderabad to win ICL @ 7-2 (BlueSquare)Hyderabad looked good today, some intelligent bowling on a slow pitch to restrict Lahore who looked a little ragged at times. I can’t find any odds quoted on the deciding match at this stage, though if Hyderabad are anywhere above Evens, I would go in. They can be backed at 2.13 on Betfair to win the tournament, but as we already had them at 7-2 yesterday, there is no need to go in again. It’s anyone’s game tomorrow.
Let dead rubbers lie is my motto and I will not be tempted to dabble in the 3rd Abu Dhabi match between Pakistan and West Indies. Pakistan seem to have the greater fighting spirit and an edge with the ball and I’m sure they will be up for this, but I can’t see any value in the available odds and some funny things happen in meaningless games.
In Australia’s 50 over tournament, the Ford Ranger Cup, Western Australia take on South Australia in Adelaide, having just completed a Sheffield Shield game there that ended in a draw. The Warriors should win this, their hard-hitting line-up of Marsh, Ronchi, Pomersbach, North and Voges (not necessarily in that order) is fuelling their charge this time, whilst South Australia look to have gone backwards since last year with the retirements of Gillespie and Elliott. You can also back them at 3-1 in the tournament winners market, which look to be decent odds given that I think only two other teams, Tasmania and Victoria have a chance.
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Western Australia to beat South Australia @ 8-13 (Ladbrokes)
Western Australia to win FR Cup @ 3-1 (Bet365)What an awesome display of hitting by Imran Nazir, from first to last ball, Twenty20 batting at its finest. Lahore finished as deserved winners of a pretty good tournament. ICL is not going away and the officially sanctioned Champions League that starts next month is going to have to go some to match it.
So we lost our Hyderabad bet but Western Australia obliged as expected, though it was narrower than anticipated on a good batting wicket and have now shortened to around 5-2 from 7-2 to take the title.
Just the single match to look at tomorrow. One day series are all about momentum and at the moment England have all the forward motion of a sleeping elephant. They need to rouse themselves and more importantly, they need a new plan. Unfortunately, the indications are that they will instead be going with Plan A Version 1.02 for the second one day international at Indore, with Peter Moores talking about going back to being aggressive and how the conditions in India are only ‘slightly different’ to how they were against South Africa in the summer. So it looks like we can expect the same four quick bowlers banging it in with presumably the same effect.
Still if you want to look for positives, though they are outgunned in the batting department, on paper England’s bowling is the equal of their opponents. The stats suggest that Indore is a good bowling pitch, with an average first innings score of 218 in one day games, extremely low for India. Low scoring games can be more of a lottery and every team, no matter how inept, has their price. So it is with some trepidation and a prayer or two that I will be taking the 15-8 available with SportingBet about an England win.
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England to beat India @ 15-8 (Sportingbet)
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You’re a braver man than I, Andrew.
I have been distinctly unimpressed by England’s performances of late and I can’t help but feel that things aren’t going to improve overnight. There would almost seem to be an air of complacency in the way we approach matches, either that or a distinct lack of confidence, and Moores and Pietersen need to set about changing the squad’s attitude pretty quickly.
As Darren Gough has recently pointed out, the selection process has become nothing more than a farce. The same old faces are being chosen simply because they are just that; the same old faces. There is little imagination in team building and I can only conclude that the same applies to training. If there’s anyone capable of lifting spirits it’s KP, but with an ineffective committee operating above him I think he’s going to have to do something fairly spectacular.
Owais Shah to top score for England @ 5/1
Virender Sehwag to top score for India @ 3/1Good pick, Tom.
You’d think after two wuppings, pennies might be dropping for Team England, but apparently not. Pietersen felt there were improvements today (indeed, we only lost by 54 runs this time) and he hadn’t wanted to change the side or the batting order so that his team could build up confidence. Yes, bless them, the last thing we’d want is for those poor little darlings to get all confused and upset by changing things.
What worked against South Africa this summer is not working on the dead Indian wickets. We need a new plan chaps. And if playing for England isn’t enough motivation, try to imagine how much you were worth in the IPL auction at the start of the tour, how much you are worth now and what your reserve price might be by the time you’re 6-0 down.
And we haven’t even seen Tendulkar yet.
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Another farcical match, though this time we have the joke that is Duckworth-Lewis to thank.
It would appear that backing Sehwag and Shah blind to top score is the way to go in this series.
Your 9/1 isn’t looking too bad either, Andrew.
Cricket is low on everyone’s list of priorities in India right now and it was entirely appropriate for all the scheduled events over the next fortnight to be postponed. The ICL World Series and the Champions League have gone, as have the last two one day internationals between India and England. At this stage, I find it hard to imagine that we will be watching the two Tests slated for next month in Ahmedabad and Chennai. The warm-up game planned in Baroda looks unlikely, even if the Tests were to go ahead and neither set of players would be fully focused on or prepared for the task in hand. And, if it is left to the English players, as we are led to believe it will be, there has to be a strong possibility that many of them will simply refuse to return. Looking further ahead, the Indian tour of Pakistan in January may also be under threat, for different, but no less significant reasons.
With South Africa having finished off Bangladesh and Sri Lanka strolling to victory in Zimbabwe, our interest turns to the Second Test at Adelaide. New Zealand had first use of the typically hard and dry pitch and as expected, failed to make the best of it. 262-6 is a poor return on a track where 500 is considered desirable. The Black Caps team is a strangely composed affair, with Jesse Ryder far too high at three but it is above all, inept and today’s mixture of timid blocking and reckless slogging is what we have come to expect.
Australia are big, big favourites now and there is nothing enticing about the 4-11 for a home win, nor even the 10-1 about the visitors. Though they bowled well at Brisbane, this is a very different pitch and I can’t see seam-up merchants O’Brien, Southee or Martin posing much of a threat. The only thing that caught my eye was the 6-1 for Michael Clarke to finish as top Aussie batsman. He just missed out on a century at Brisbane, is in reasonable touch and averages 90 on this ground in Tests. He is preferred to the out of form Ponting, Hayden and Hussey whilst Symonds averages 19 here and Katich’s scratchy methods will not be seen to such advantage.
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Michael Clark to be top Australian batsman @ 6-1 (Stan James, Betdirect)
Hi Andrew, I’ve just clicked on your excellent blog only to be told it does not exist
Was wondering what your thoughts on the upcoming series between the Aussie’s and South Africa were?
I think the 10/3 (if those odds are correct, going by memory) which you can get on both the draw and South Africa win were quite appealing.
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Hi Nathan,
The link should be working now. I have been trapped in internet hell on and off for the last few days, but have made sacrifices to the relevant gods and am hopefully going to be able to resume this thread.
The Australia – South Africa series should be a cracker. A real stamina test for the cricket watcher, though I prefer the midnight starts to the 4:00 am shift that watching anyone play in India entails.
I’ll be looking at the odds for Aus v Saf, Ind v Eng and Win v NZ tomorrow so might have something to add. 100-30 about the draw does look high at first glance, but I think Perth will give us a result whereas Melbourne and Sydney have real draw potential, particularly given the stodgy nature of the South African batting. They should, if they’ve got any sense, gamble everything on winning in Perth, where the pitch should play to their strengths.
I took 11-4 for South Africa to win the series and Ashwell Prince for most runs in Perth.
Should be an enthralling series.
Price of both SA and the draw look quite interesting – I do think the Aussies are susceptible at the moment.
Zip
Glad your blog is still alive Andrew.
Been on oddschecker and England to win the test series vs India is 9/1 at totesport and even although it will be hard for England to win it would not be impossible so i thought if England are going to win the series it would be more likely to be 1-0 than 2-0 and a correct score will be better odds but when i checked the odds for 1-0 at totesport it was 8/1
can that be right?edit- been back on oddschecker this morning (wed) and totesport have taken down their prices, bet the 1-0 is higher odds then the series win when they decide to put back up.
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
There’s some strange pricing up going on. For instance, England were 9-1 in places to win the series, but 12-1 to win the First Test. Both prices are wrong, in my opinion. India are favourites, but not by so much. I’ve backed both and I’ve also backed Swann for top series bowler as I like what I’ve seen of him – he gives the ball plenty of air and is a more attacking bowler than Monty. I was momentarily tempted by Collingwood at 8-1 for top bat, but he is not the player he was and though he has the patience to grind out big scores on the subcontinent, his technique, particularly when he is no sort of form, makes him vulnerable.
South Africa meanwhile are excellent value at 3-1 or above and the 100-30 quoted about the draw was still available last night with Bet365. The only thing I’d say about that is that though Australia have drawn around 22% of home Tests in the last 20 years (roughly 7-2) these two teams do have a history of draws on Aussie soil, with 4 of the 12 since readmission ending in stalemate. And if we assume that they are closer together in ability these days, that indicates that a drawn series would be more likely.
I’d also agree that Prince is a decent bet for top series bat, at 13-2, on price alone, but my choice is AB De Villiers. He continues to be priced up in the 7-1/8-1 range, but is good enough to bat higher (he spent time as Smith’s opening partner).
South Africa must gamble everything on outgunning the Aussies at Perth because once they get onto the stodgy MCG pitch and the easy-paced turn of Sydney, Australia will have the better bowling options. Steyn, Morkel and Ntini are quick and do attack from different angles, but none of them possess a plan B, whilst Lee and Johnson brushed up on their reverse swing in India and Clark is a canny operator. South Africa will be hoping to snatch a 1-0 lead and then bat with the obduracy they showed in England. A few weeks ago, I was convinced they had a strong chance, now I feel less convinced and the hamstring niggle for Steyn is a concern.
For top Aussie bowler, I’ve gone for Krejza, another attacking finger spinner who gives it a big tweak. I would play him even at Perth (providing his ankle injury has cleared up) because the bounce will help him.
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England to win series @ 9-1 (Totesport)
England to win First Test @ 12-1 (various)
Swann top Eng series bowler @ 7-1 (various)
South Africa to win series @ 3-1 (various)
AB De Villiers top SAF series bat @ 8-1 (various)
Krejza top AUS series bowler @ 9-1 (Skybet)edit- been back on oddschecker this morning (wed) and totesport have taken down their prices, bet the 1-0 is higher odds then the series win when they decide to put back up.
that’s my first losing bet
how can that be though because a series win at 9’s covers 1-0 & 2-0 but the 8’s only cover 1-0, never mind. Good luck with your bets Andrew, England have to be backed at that price, India caught Australia at the right time home advantage and with Warne impossible to replace and although India are a quality outfit i feel they are overrated somewhat and will have to rebuild themselves aswell in the near future with Dravid, Tendulkar and Sehwag approaching the end of their careers.
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
can that be right?
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