We are hours away from The Ashes beginning and before the series gets underway there is a chance to look at the player markets for it. We will cover the bowlers later but for now we are going to concentrate on the team batting markets.
There are some of the best batters in the world taking to the crease to entertain us in this series and while the bowler markets look a little harder to decipher, unless there is an injury the batting units are likely to remain the same which makes things a bit easier.
England
We’ll begin our look at the batters with the home side where Joe Root is a warm favourite for the top scoring honours. He is without doubt the best player in the England team but they are the ones the Australians usually target and actually his record under Ben Stokes is nothing like it was when he was the one making the decisions. At the price I think the value lies elsewhere. Ollie Pope and Ben Duckett filled their boots against Ireland earlier in the month but this challenge is a complete different level to that one. Zak Crawley and Ben Stokes will both be in the top six to start the series. England are going to persist with Crawley but his consistency isn’t what it needs to be while the injury risk to Stokes makes him a no no.
I have this market about the Yorkshire pair and if Jonny Bairstow had been able to get some quality time in the middle ahead of this series I would have backed him at 17/2 because his style fits the way England plays perfectly. He hasn’t though and although bringing Moeen Ali back will give him at least two batting partners but he hasn’t really batted for the better part of nine months. That leaves Harry Brook who I think will replace Root as the most talented English player of this generation. The position for him is he shouldn’t be exposed to the new ball too often and we saw in his opening seven Tests just how talented he is. He already has three 50s and four centuries in just 11 innings against South Africa, Pakistan and New Zealand, three decent bowling attacks. Brook has played in the Big Bash so he’ll have come across one or two of these bowlers before and on a flat deck he could fill his boots over the next six weeks. This exciting talent is overpriced at 9/2.
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Australia
When you look at the Australia batting unit you see their three, four and five are the top three ranked players in the world right now in Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith and Travis Head. Labuschagne and Smith get a lot of headlines and there is no doubt they are going to be the men England need to keep quiet if they are going to win this series. Usually Labuschagne would be my first port of call. He averaged 71.71 in the Country Championship for Glamorgan earlier in the season and is a renowned class act, but with Dave Warner and Usman Khawaja potentially being exposed by the swinging ball, Labuschagne could be in a little early.
I would have no issue with backing Smith but at a best price of 6/4 I’m not convinced there is a huge amount of value in him, especially as he scores much slower than the others around him. I actually think the value lies in the 13/2 on Head. It must be said his record against England in England is terrible but he might have put any issues to bed with that excellent innings at The Oval last week. Ben Stokes will set attacking fields so batters who fight fire with fire will get full value for their shots and that Head innings last week came at close to a run a ball, and twice as quick as Smith. Head looks in the prime spot to get on the front foot to me.
Tips
Back H.Brook Top England Series Batter for a 2/10 stake at 5.50 with Boylesports
Back him here:
Back T.Head Top Australia Series Batter for a 2/10 stake at 7.50 with Bet365
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