Value Available On The Cricket

England are 7/4 for the second (Lords) Test (represents a 36% chance).

It's hard to believe that the bookies still make Australia favourites for this match after the heavy defeat at Cardiff. Haddin and Watson are both missing, and a debutant keeps wicket for Australia. Morale must surely be low in the Aussie camp - even Jason Gillespie called them "Dad's Army" before the series started. By contrast, Root is rampant for England and they have a number of match winners still to come to the party. With Pietersen consigned to history, the rancour (yes - correct spelling) has gone from the home side.

According to the BBC Weather site (dodgy - I know) there is little chance of rain at Lords, and only two of the last fourteen tests there have ended in a draw (the last four Lords Ashes tests all produced positive results). If you're brave enough to totally discount the draw, I'd rate the Aussies' chance at no more than 50% at best, suggesting that each side should be no more than Evens if the stalemate is taken out of the equation.

7/4 (36% chance) England therefore looks a generous price to me.

 

how can the stalemate be taken totally out of the eqaution though?

Id too be quite happy to back England at 7/4 however with the expectation that all 3 results are as likely as the other, so as per your math england at 36% gives me 3% extra on outcomes just as likely, this is the basic formulae but then lets look at it this way.......

this extra 3% is more than likely to be something much higher as the draw must be lower than an equal chance (33%) based on history. weather and recent scoring rates etc so while i understand discounting the draw the likelyhood must be somewhere between the absolute zero % and 33%..... where it actually lies depends how good your bet on england is i guess.

 

First test I made a pretty tidy sum betting on the under/over runs market. Bookies put the runrate at around 3.3-3.5 over a set amount of overs even though both sides go closer to 4 runs an over. You can do runs in 5 over bursts but with being so short it doesn't account for a few slow batting overs, so I tend to work on 10-15 over periods.

For example when the toss is made tomorrow in play betting will probably have runs scored in the first 15 overs at around under/over 48.5 if it's anything like the first test. Barely three runs an over. At odds of around 5/6 that are offered for these kind of bets the win bank soon rises. Definately worth keeping an eye on that market.

 

It can't, totally. But what I'm saying is that if you look at the stats and the weather forecast, a draw in this test seems unlikely. There's a lot of comment around to the effect that "the Aussies will come back strong....." and so on. But to me they actually look very brittle after that first test. I give England a big chance in this match.

 

Would be happier to lump on if both were playing...

 

Easy money already. 5/6 for Australia to get at least 28 runs in the first 10 overs, which they did in just over half the time. Bookies keep the Aussie runrate under 3 and keep cashing in.

 

Hope you're not into it too heavy orsen. Draw looking favourite to me after 1st day, England win rank outsider.