England have won The Ashes. They have beaten Australia in a one off T20 International and now they will look to seal a clean sweep of series wins over their rivals when the two sides play out a five match ODI series over the next fortnight.
The series begins at the Ageas Bowl on Thursday before taking in Lord’s, Old Trafford and Headingley before it ends back at Old Trafford on the 13th September.
England laid a benchmark for this series when they took care of the World Cup runners up New Zealand earlier in the summer. They played exciting, expansive, positive, attacking cricket and there were signs in the T20 in Cardiff on Monday that they are going to look to repeat that style in this series.
Having beaten the World Cup finalists they now face the World Cup champions but this won’t be the same Australia side that cruised to that success. Aaron Finch, Michael Clarke, James Faulkner, Brad Haddin, Mitchell Johnson and Josh Hazlewood all played in that final but none of them are here due to retirement, injury or just being rested.
England have given Joe Root a well earned rest but they have such a competitive pool of players at the minute that they probably won’t miss him as much as they might have done 12-18 months ago. James Taylor and Moeen Ali are both capable of stepping up and delivering.
On paper England might have a weaker bowling attack than we are used to. It is certainly inexperienced but it is also improving under the new management and I have no fears that they will let England down.
I think in terms of the series the value lies with England. I always worry about the motivation for the tourists when the ODIs are at the end of the tour. Australia’s players have been away from home for a long time so it would be only human that they long for their families and their own beds and things and England will be looking to take advantage of that.
Having won the World Cup, Australia are already building for the next World Cup by calling up the likes of Pat Cummins, Marcus Stoinis and Joe Burns to their squad whereas England are using much the same players as before but have completely adapted their style to one which we saw was successful in that tournament earlier in the year.
England look full of confidence at the minute and I think they can transfer that confidence into ODI wins and land the series at a decent looking 7/4.
With the series being five matches long there is the opportunity to get stuck into the top batsman and top bowler markets although in truth the only one I like a bet in is the England batsman market.
Alex Hales leads the way in that market and that is understandable because he opens the batting and is in fine form while Eoin Morgan showed all of his class in the T20 international but I happen to like the other man who went well at Cardiff.
Moeen Ali could yet open the batting for England in this series but if he doesn’t he will bat at number three and either are good positions for the Worcestershire man. What I like about him is how he can score runs against the seamers and the spinners. In fact the spinners will get the treatment once Ali is in and he could score very quickly against them.
Moeen showed his talents at this level in the World Cup where he was England’s best batsman and with an eye on going up the order in the Test arena this is a chance to show he can play further up the batting line up. At 5/1 given the form he showed in Cardiff on Monday he looks a nice price.
Back England to win ODI Series for a 4/10 stake at 2.75 with Bet365
Back M.Ali Top England Series Batsman for a 3/10 stake at 6.00 with Boylesports
Blog cricket YTD: -4.03pts
