England’s busy winter begins with a three match ODI series in Bangladesh over the next week. This will be England’s first tour of Bangladesh since 2010 and already it hasn’t been without its controversies and struggles but everything is in place for the tour to go ahead beginning on Friday.
Schedule
1st ODI: 7 Oct at Dhaka
2nd ODI: 9 Oct at Dhaka
3rd ODI: 12 Oct at Chittagong
Bangladesh
The Tigers go into this series looking for a seventh successive home bilateral series win and while you might think those previous wins will have come against weaker, inferior opponents you would be wrong because they have seen off both India and South Africa on these shores in recent times.
Bangladesh are very much a side on the up and with their status in the top eight sides in the ICC ODI rankings we will be seeing them over in England next summer in the Champions Trophy which is a signal of their improvement. This is probably their best format of the game at the minute so they are entitled to be tricky opponents.
England
England have much to thank Bangladesh for in this format of the game. It was defeat to them in the World Cup last year that made them change their style and approach to 50 over cricket and the change since then has been remarkable. They are now a very impressive unit in this format and are still getting better.
England head into this series off the back of an emphatic 4-1 win over Pakistan last month and they won in the UAE against the same opponent last year to show that they can perform in Asian conditions. Their run to the World T20 final in India is another indication of that so they will be confident.
Head to Head
These two have played just two bilateral series over the course of time with both of them taking place in Bangladesh and England have won them both 3-0 so Bangladesh will be looking to create a little bit of history over the next week or so.
In terms of match betting Bangladesh fare slightly better with three wins from 16 matches including in each of the last two World Cups so they have shown England they can perform on the big occasion and can’t be taken lightly.
Betting
As outsiders there is a real case to be made for backing Bangladesh in this series with the record they have at home in recent times but they are missing a couple of big players and that puts me off taking them. England are without a couple of senior players too so I’ll leave the series odds alone.
I am going to take one in the series though and it is on the man who has an excellent chance to make a name for himself with Alex Hales deciding this tour wasn’t for him. That man is James Vince who is set to open the batting for England in the series.
I think the top of the order is the place to be in this series. The ball is likely to scuff up a bit and the wickets get slower as the matches go along so the new ball might be the best time to score so Vince has that in his favour. He is a wonderful player of spin which you have to be in order to score on these tracks and having made a solid 48 in the warm up match he’s in good touch. At 5/1 he’s almost double the price of his opening partner Jason Roy and that is big enough to tempt me in.
Tips
Back J.Vince Top England Series Batsman for a 2/10 stake at 6.00 with Betfred
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