So the eagerly-awaited Ashes series is almost upon us. It begins late Wednesday night (GMT) at The Gabba, Brisbane. It is normally one of those sporting occasions which is a terrible anti-climax. You salivate at the prospect and then England are crushed, rendering it uncompetitive.
This could happen again. Or it might not, considering both teams have something of a cobbled-together look about them. Two examples: Australia have picked a wicketkeeper who hasn’t played for SEVEN years, England have picked a No 3 who has failed consistently.
Not surprisingly the bookies are keen to catch the interest while it lasts. So there are a plethora of markets at green-listed bookmakers offering standout value to take advantage of. Here are our best picks…
Leader after second Test
The value here is ‘draw’ at +260 (Unibet). God willing anyway because it will mean we are in for a decent betting heat. But it makes sense from a wagering point of view considering the venues for the first two Tests are Brisbane and Adelaide.
Brisbane is a fortress for Australia. They haven’t lost there since 1988. Seriously. England are routinely beaten to a pulp. The fast, hard surface is alien for their batsmen and bowlers. One-nil Aussie.
But Adelaide offers redemption. This is a day-night Test so to protect a pink ball from disintegrating grass has to be left on the wicket. This makes the conditions a home from home for England and uncomfortable for Aussie. One-one. Simple.
Total draws
The draw is a thing of the past in Test matches, which are given five, long days to find a winner. This year 89 percent of matches have produced results. We don’t expect any stalemates in this Ashes series.
Apart from recent history, there are two reasons for this. The wickets are good for the bowlers and are ‘result’ wickets. Secondly, both batting sides have the potential to be razed in double-quick time. There are only two on each side (David Warner/Steve Smith and Joe Root/Alastair Cook) who are top-class top-order players.
Oh. And the weather. It doesn’t rain so much in Australia, does it? Get on the +138 (Coral, Ladbrokes) that there aren’t any draws.
Cameron Bancroft series runs
Cameron Bancroft is one of the left-field Aussie picks. He will open the batting with David Warner after Mat Renshaw was controversially ditched. Bancroft has good domestic form so it kinda makes sense.
But he is completely unproven in the Test arena. So the Ladbrokes quote of over 340.5 series runs -120 seems high. Even if he replicated his haul off 66 runs per the first-class match he would still come up short. And there is a massive gulf between the levels. Runs will be harder to come by.
Calculators
