We are back to one match in the Cricket World Cup on Thursday and it promises to be a cracking encounter as Australia take on the West Indies at Trent Bridge. Both sides won their first game in the tournament and a win here would leave whoever gets it very handily placed in the early table.
Apart from a warm up match hastily arranged in Southampton a few weeks ago, you have to go back to 2016 for the last time these two teams did battle in an ODI so it will be interesting to see what they have in store for us.
AllSportsBetting Podcast
Kev and Steve are back to look forward to what they both think will be an entertaining contest. Kev discusses his three bets for the game and they preview all the major betting markets. Click play to listen!
Australia
Having backed Australia to win this tournament outright I was obviously extremely interested in how they would perform in their opening match of the event and to be fair I was impressed with what I saw. They bowled with discipline but no shortage of intensity and they set about their batting innings with the intent required in a match which they knew they had to win. It might only have been Afghanistan that they beat but there was never a glimmer of a banana skin about it.
It is very rare for a team to be at their very best in the opening match, and actually in a tournament of this format you wouldn’t want to peak that soon, so with plenty more likely to come from Australia they look in a good place. If there is a room for improvement it would be in the middle overs. Afghanistan got after them then and better sides could be more destructive but overall it was pleasing.
West Indies
A lot was made of the West Indies’ performance in their opening match against Pakistan and rightly so, it was like a return to their heyday with the pace like fire sort of bowling they hammered down. The key now for them is to back that bowling effort up with another here and if they can do that they will really announce themselves as major players in the competition whether they win this match or lose it.
We didn’t really get the chance to judge their batting in that first match with them only chasing 100 but we will find out a lot more about that unit here. On paper they have the most feared batting order in the tournament but they need to transfer that to the middle. As with their bowling, if their batting can deliver to their reputation then they are going to make a significant announcement about their hopes in the competition.
Team News
Australia have no need to make any changes to their side unless they want to bring Shaun Marsh in for Usman Khawaja. Khawaja was cleaned up in the warm up match between these two so there is a chance to play Marsh here.
West Indies are unlikely to be unchanged after such a convincing performance although you would think if Evin Lewis is fit they would want to get him somehow. It will be interesting to see if the spinner goes as he’s unlikely to bowl too much.
Special Offer
Bet on the team top batsman market at Boylesports; get money back as a free bet up to £20 if your player scores 50+ but doesn’t top score! ALL CUSTOMERS! Click the image above to bet. 18+ T&Cs apply
Betting
I’m really looking forward to this match. It should be an absolute belter. There is the obvious viewpoint that there is going to be a lot of runs in it but at the same time these two bowling attacks are full of pace and quality so it wouldn’t take a huge amount for it not to be high scoring. With that in mind I’m going to think outside the box a little for bets.
The first bet I like is over 15.5 wides. When these two met in a warm up match in Southampton there were 16 wides and there is the potential for a whole lot more here. We are going to see a lot of short balls and bumpers here and inevitably some of them will be too short but I would imagine the bowlers will push the margins when bowling full too because they are not going to want to bowl into the arc of these batsmen. Anything on the stumps to the likes of Warner, Finch, Gayle and Russell will land somewhere near Leicester so there could well be a fair few ‘normal’ wides. I think this line is too low with the pressure the bowlers could be under.
When searching through the bets for this match I noticed a match bet priced up between Darren Bravo and Shimron Hetmyer at a level ball in terms of runs and that just looks all wrong to me. Bravo has a horrible record against Australia. He has faced them 14 times and has only passed 30 on three occasions. 10 of his 14 innings have seen him dismissed for less than 20 so this is an opponent he doesn’t enjoy facing. He isn’t in great form either. His last 10 matches have resulted in knocks of 4, 9*, 1, 17, 6, 3*, 5, DNB, 25 and 0. Hetmyer is a confident bloke who is likely to face less of Starc and Cummins than Bravo may. Hetmyer averages more than 40 in this format with four tons in just 25 knocks. On a level day he should beat Bravo with a bit in hand here.
Nicholas Pooran looked in decent touch when he came in against Pakistan in the first match. He smoked 34 in no time and coming in somewhere in the middle order he could have a bit of fun in this match too. We saw in the first Australia game that the back up to Starc and Cummins is a good deal inferior to those two so there is every chance of someone batting the majority of the middle overs to get a decent score. Given how Pooran looked in that first game it wouldn’t be the most unlikely thing in the world for it to be him. He’s a fair price to top score at 8/1.
Tips
WON – Back Over 15.5 wides for a 4/10 stake at 1.95 with Betway
Back it here:
VOID – Back S.Hetmyer to beat D.Bravo for a 5/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back N.Pooran Top West Indies Batsman for a 1/10 stake at 9.00 with Betfred
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2019
