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I agree with the sentiment regarding englands price. If you compare the attacks of England and Australia (when in india), ours is potentially a more balanced attack. If Anderson, Flintoff and Harmison continue as they did in the summer (during tests) they are at least the equal of the Aussie seamers and i really expect Monty and Swann to offer more than Cameron White and M Clarke.
Whether the batting holds up is another question.
I’m inclined to think Collingwoods shift may be just about up with shah and bopara pushing for his place but i’m hopeful Prior may finally claim the gloves as he has undoubted batting ability.
I’ve backed England at 9’s and Ishant Sharma for top indian bowler at 5’s as even though England struggle with quality spin the market has over rated harbhajan somewhat.
I agree, Roland, the prices on Harbajhan are ridiculous – 11-8 if I remember rightly. England are going to be just as vulnerable to reverse swing as to spin and both Ishant and Zak look a little overpriced.
Panesar is a similar price to Chuckbhaji and with even less reason. But as you say, Swann and Panesar ought to fare better than Clarke and White. If they don’t, resignation is the only honourable course.
You’re right Nathan, some of the prices don’t make sense. Since I have been paying more attention to cricket betting, I’ve noticed some strange discrepancies of the type that you simply wouldn’t expect on the horses.
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I think the ‘unrest’ in India at the moment is far more likely to effect England, in that we haven’t played the three-day warm up games that we would have ordinarily and have had to endure ludicrous travel schedules brought about by the laughable efforts of the ECB and PCA. Still, Pietersen got to make his ‘standing shoulder to shoulder with the Indian people’ speech, though I’m getting rather tired of his blatant attempts to mask England’s failures with heroic nonsense.
Harbhajan’s place at the head of the Indian wicket-taking market (first test only) isn’t, in all honesty, that surprising, and the 7/4 with Ladbrokes is quite enticing I must admit. I sometimes get the feeling that he’s not the sort of person you could get along with off the pitch (or indeed on it), but we’re tailor made for him and our middle to lower order are in for a rough ride.
In a similar vein I was intent on backing Monty to outperform our somewhat inconsistent attack, but I think the equivalent 7/4 about him is too short. If he is given a chance early on and finds his length then he could be problematic, but I’m far happier taking the chance that Jimmy Anderson is going to have one of his good days. When he’s on it, he’s on it, and he could feed off the predicted wayward efforts of pace counterpart Harmison. He’ll do for me at around 5/1.
Top batsmen (first test only) is a far trickier market to unravel, particularly in the case of India. Their top half is so depressingly strong that any of the sextet could conceivably rattle up a three-figure score, but Sehwag has been so impressive in recent limited over matches that I can’t help but take some of the 6/1 about him (Indian batsmen are likely to dominate overall so betting in the top runscorer market, rather than the team-specific equivalent, seems to make sense).
Pietersen is the one shining light in our batting line-up, but even the great one himself is prone to lapses in concentration. Andrew Flintoff is very much in the same mould – it’s either all or nothing these days. Out here, I’m tempted to side with the latter. Collingwood and Bell were predictably poor squad inclusions on recent form, so I’m left with a toss up between Strauss and Cook. Strauss is someone who I would have been happy to see as test captain and is more than capable of playing a steady 60 or 70, but I worry about his resolution at times and have a nasty vision of him playing a Gower-esque slice to slip at some point. That leaves me with Cook, who has adapted his style nicely since his early test appearances (not that he could be categorised as a veteran yet) and would appear to be the best equipped to cope with the spin threat India pose.
The 5/6 about India scoring more than 42.5 points before their first wicket is surely buying money?
James Anderson to be top England wicket-taker (first test only) @ 5/1
Virender Sehwag to be top batsmen (first test only) @ 6/1
Alastair Cook to be top England batsmen (first test only) @ 4/1
India to score more than 42.5 for their first wicket @ 5/6Harbhajan is easy to dislike. But there are many in India prepared to forgive his behaviour and that of others such as Ganguly, while he was captain, and Gambhir more recently. Some Indian cricket fans like the fact that their players are now behaving as obnoxiously as the Aussies, South Africans and English and this feeds into the feeling that India is becoming pre-eminent within the world game. Colonial scores are being settled.
I felt that the odds on Harbhajan were too short in what is at least a three horse race race. Even if you discount Ishant Sharma, there is still wily old Zaheer Khan reversing the ball at will, Mishra the young leggie and, as we saw yesterday, Yuvraj gets a fair bit of bowling. (Sehwag too, if required).
Good luck with the Anderson bet. As I speak, he may be ripping through the Indian top order, but he’s always struck me as a shaky betting vehicle. But if he can master reverse swing, who knows.
Timid batting from England yesterday. The secret of batting in India is to attack in the first few overs while the ball is still hard and then steer the ball into the gaps off the spinners. Strauss did really well, but the rest were far too negative. Pietersen was skittish, Bell ineffectual and though Collingwood got a rough decision, I still think Shah would have been a better bet.
Good day today for England and a great first over of International cricket for Swann picking up two wickets. I don’t know what the liquidation is like on betfair but with England just over evens for the first test it might be a tactic to lay.
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
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Well, my bets on Cook and Sehwag look to have bitten the dust, but I’m still in the running with Harbhajan (forgot to add him to my list in the previous post) and Jimmy Anderson.
Despite having lost plenty on the 5/6 about India making more than 42.5 for their first wicket, I have to say that I have been impressed by England’s approach to the game. That said, surely Bell and Collingwood now have to be dropped and ‘encouraged’ to play a little more county cricket to earn their places?
Bell has the talent but seems to lack the mental toughness. Collingwood has the opposite problem. I agree that they are top of the drop list, but suspect it will be Collingwood first.
A surprisingly good day for England today – thought that India’s batting was a little loose. Hopefully Dhoni and Harbhajan won’t repeat their Nagpur partnership that put on around a hundred and took the game away from Australia.
I tend not to get into laying off, unless I’m feeling particularly cautious, but you can hedge your England bet by laying them at 2.24 on Betfair this evening. India look a touch short at 2.78 with the draw at 5.0.
Pietersen was skittish, Bell ineffectual and though Collingwood got a rough decision, I still think Shah would have been a better bet.
I dont think i’ve seen KP bat like that before. Very strange, maybe the previous weeks had affected him most. Bell was done by a couple of great balls from Zaheer and i’m willing to forgive him that but he doesn’t quite look right at no.3.
Cue the blatantly obvious though, Collingwood has to be dropped. Though he’s managed to scrap a few scores this year and been unlucky he still looks like a man whos perpetually out of form. It can’t inspire great confidence if you’re batting with him. Shah must be given a go.
I get this inkling though that the powers that be may just wait until the west indies and swap Colly for Vaughan which may cue a move down to five for Bell.Enough conspiracy theories though and back to the present. Priors batting and some excellent bowling gets Englands noses in front. I liked your bet on Swanny, Andrew, to an extent you nearly convinced me to follow. I wish i had, may turn out an inspired choice.
With reference to Anderson, i think the markets confuse his ODI form with Test which has remarkabley flip flopped since the New Zealand tour. His strike rate and economy are much improved. The 17/2 available for him for top english bowler at paddy power nearly got my cash, i left it a tad too late though by which time he was cut to 5’s.Every player has their price and even an Anderson-sceptic like me would be converted if I’d seen that 17-2.
Some interesting observations regarding the batting, Roland. I think I heard that Pietersen was carrying a rib injury – not sure whether that has anything to do with it. I have seen a fidgety KP, a nervous KP and a belligerent KP but yesterday he seemed to have had one too many Red Bulls and didn’t like having to face Yuvraj at all.
I like the Machiavellian quality of your conspiracy theory but I may add an extra twist. With Vaughan back in the team, he would be ideally poised to pick up his captaincy duties once more. At the very least, he could offer some advice to Pietersen. The selectors gambled by bringing back Strauss last winter and it worked, maybe they’ll go for a bigger gamble this time. Would be very harsh on Shah though. In a way, I’m more frustrated with Bell than Collingwood. Colly is an obvious drop candidate, but Bell isn’t even producing those lovely cover drives – he always used to manage a couple before getting out, now we are denied even that entertainment. Bopara is a possibility for three eventually.
Swann has a good attitude, he’s his own man, reminds me of Tufnell in some ways, but tougher and he gets some lovely drift on his off-breaks. He’s going to be expensive though, so hopefully KP will stick with him as much as Ponting stuck with Krejza.
Agreed, Andrew, and on top of those attributes you can add desperately unlucky not to get the LBW decision from Darryl Harper that would have (temporarily at least) swung things back t’other way with still just over 100 runs to get.
Panesar disappointed badly in the second innings, producing insufficient variety of flight (not for the first time) and failing to exploit craters on the pitch the size of the BFG’s acne to any recognisable extent.
Given the number of England players out there just now, given that the series cannot be won, and given that media expectations of a win were low in any case on account of thr troubled preparation, I think Pietersen has absolute carte blanche to make as many changes to the team for the second Test as he wishes without any likely recriminations back home.
Rashid for Panesar and Shah for Bell seems an absolute minimum number of changes to me – any aches and pains that come to light among the incumbent seamers ought to ramp up that tally yet further.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Rashid is not supposed to be up for selection on this trip, but it must now be entering their thoughts. I suspect that they won’t drop Monty due to a mixture of loyalty and concerns about Rashid’s age (though this wouldn’t even occur to Indian selectors). And Collingwood has earned a reprieve so it will have to be Bell who makes way for Shah. Maybe Broad for Anderson too.
I’d also like to see them drop the silly sledging. It is not an edifying spectacle to watch Flintoff mouthing off and then swaggering back to his mark with that school bully smirk on his face. Save it for the Aussies, where it has an air of righteousness, since they started it.
And I note, there was little sledging of Tendulkar.
Anyone fancy a tickle on England at 7/1?
Imagine Broad will come back, but whether it is to replace Harmison or Anderson or instead of them is hard to say. Worry for me is KP favours (on a personal level) Harmison over Anderson which would be a mistake.
Stories about the light make the draw a possibility as well.
Woke up this morning SA 200-3, clean my teeth, have a wash feed the baby put the tele back on 240-8 even England would find difficulty in doing that, well maybe not.
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Get in South Africa
chasing over 400 in the last innings vs the Aussie’s only losing 4 wickets quality.Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Get in South Africa
chasing over 400 in the last innings vs the Aussie’s only losing 4 wickets quality.Yep – brill performance from SA.
Looking forward to the start of the next test tonight.
Amazing to think the Aussies could soon be rated 3rd best in the world!
Zip
chasing over 400 in the last innings vs the Aussie’s only losing 4 wickets quality.
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