The Wednesday night action in the PDC Home Tour sees Group 20 of the competition being played, as once again four more men battle it out from their own homes to keep us occupied and hopefully entertained during lockdown.
We have had a late change to the cast list ahead of the Wednesday night action, which has a competitive feel to it now, and so should continue with the trend of some decent darts being played throughout.
The Format
Each night four players will battle it out in a round robin format with the group winner progressing to the next stage of the tournament. All six matches in each group will be the best of nine legs with two points awarded for a win. If players finish level on points then leg difference will decide the outcome. If that cannot separate players then the head to head will settle the group winner. Were three players to be tied on points and leg difference the player with the highest overall average goes through. The entire tournament is being streamed live on PDC.tv, the Sky Sports App and various bookmaker sites.
Tuesday Recap
For the second night in succession the rankings told a story and the leading ranked player in the field won all three of his matches. It was Stephen Bunting on Monday night and it was the turn of Glen Durrant to achieve that feat on Tuesday evening, winning all three of his matches and not really being troubled at any point. There was a time Justin Pipe looked like threatening him but in the end he had to settle for two wins. There was a single win for Maik Kuivenhoven and nothing for Vincent van der Meer.
The night couldn’t have gone much better for us on Tuesday from a betting point of view. It was pretty obvious from the first match of the night that Glen Durrant only had to maintain his form for a couple of hours to land our punt on him to win the group. He had no problems doing that and showed his class and light-hearted side throughout to provide us with a nice chunk of profit on the evening.
Group 20 Line Up
Joe Cullen is the highest ranked player in the field in this group and he is the favourite to come through it. He is a bit of an enigma at times. On the big stage he is either terrific or terrible and no in between but there is no denying the talent he has and if he brings that out in his home environment then he is going to be a tough cookie to crack. He is a 6/4 favourite to land the group which is probably a fair looking price.
For the first time in a while in this event we have two members of the top 32 in the same group as World Cup ace Jermaine Wattimena replaces his countryman Jeffrey de Zwaan who withdrew quite late in the piece due to a shoulder injury. The ‘Machine Gun’ is probably one of the most improved players on the circuit and his quick throw is nowhere near as erratic right now. At 93.94 he has the highest cumulative average of all four men on the Players Championship events this season which could be significant. If he pins his doubles he’s entitled to go very well.
Another player who we’ve seen doing his thing in the World Cup is the third ranked player in the field. That is the Greece star John Michael, who fits a growing trend in this section of a player who can be brilliant or bad and sometimes both in the same match. I’ve always liked Michael. He’s a player who attacks the board and the game and I fancy there could be plenty to come from him here. Michael has a win over Daryl Gurney on the pro tour this season so he merits respect at around the 5/1 mark.
The fourth member of the group is a newbie on the Tour in the form of Ryan Murray from Scotland. He might be a newbie and he might not have got past the last 64 of any event this season but he is averaging more than 92 in the Players Championship events which suggests he is no mug. Clearly he is up against it here but in a group which could contain close matches throughout there might be a dash of value in him at 5/1 without the pressures of ranking points at stake.
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Outright Betting
You really can make a case for all four men in this group which makes it exciting for those of us who love watching our darts but it doesn’t make it too easy from a betting point of view. My gut feeling is that Joe Cullen will justify his favouritism tag but I’m not massively keen on the price so don’t really want to back him. Of the outsiders I’ve a feeling John Michael could put up a strong showing but unfortunately the only match he has the throw in is the final one against Joe Cullen – again not ideal.
The fact that a case can be made for all four men means that I’m expecting quite a few close matches and that leads me to thinking the 16.5 180s line can be covered here. If we average it out we don’t even need three per match and in matches that are likely to have eight or nine legs that is certainly not beyond the realms of possibility. We have four decent scorers on show here so on a night made for high scoring I’ll go with over 16.5 180s across the evening.
Match Betting
There isn’t a whole lot I like in the match betting on Wednesday night I have to say. Once again I’m looking for matches where the player throwing first is a nice price in an even looking match up but the only one of those we have got is Joe Cullen against Jermaine Wattimena which I have my concerns about because Wattimena is such a late entry into this group that we don’t really know how his form is going to be.
Of those at a price against the throw there is something telling me John Michael will give Ryan Murray a good game and has every chance of beating him but I would want better than 11/10 if I’m taking the throw on and there is no guarantee the Greek wins anyway. I’m pretty confident we are going to see a lot of maximums on the night and that will serve as my only wager on the evening.
Tips
WON – Back Over 16.5 180s for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Coral
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