After a short break mid-series the Ashes was back again last night and Day 1 sees the Australians on 299 for 8 wickets after being sent into bat. There has been a lot of talk about the weather in the lead up to this match, but Day 1 was a solid days play and the forecast doesn’t look too ominous to me. It’s always risky to bet on Test Cricket when the weather is looking a bit dodgy but I think that at least in Australia – the weather is being talked up a bit too much….and that means there could be an edge there betting against it.
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The pitch looks decent to me. Any Australian captain over the last 30 odd years probably would have chosen to Bat First on this pitch. That said, I thought the Australian batting effort was a little under par. There were a good number of glorious cricket shots played but apart from Travis Head getting out to a loose pull shot, the wickets to fall were ON or BEHIND the crease. No less than 4 of them were LBW – which suggests there isn’t a lot of bounce in the wicket and Chris Woakes (notoriously a swing bowler) picked up 4 wickets too. Once again I think there are clues here as to how this game might play out.
Part time Spinner Moeen Ali got some decent turn off the pitch on Day 1, confirming to me that this is likely the Ashes wicket most conducive to spin and Australia have lost their pre-series edge in the spin department big time. They dumped newbie spinner Todd Murphy and cited “Conditions” as a reason but that is just pure bollox. I get that they don’t want to dent the lads confidence, but this kind of fluffy excuse doesn’t cut it in my book. Australia have a big problem in this test with no real spinner – there is no doubt in my mind.
England can probably win this game with its edge in the swing bowling department – especially if there is some cloudy conditions through the match. Day 1 saw plenty of sunshine but the ball still moved a bit and my gut feel here is that familiarity with the local conditions is really going to be the biggest factor in this game. I can see Australia knocked over early Day 2 and then a solid innings put in by England to take a 1st Innings lead – but maybe not by much. Stokes is once again likely to declare prematurely to try and move the game forward because he wants to save the series. Especially with weather about I think he will take a gambit so betting English Runs is a bit of a risk even though I think they can score them.
Therefore on the betting front I am jumping on England to Win here at 3.05 with a modest stake. At this stage I have no plans to lay it off at all and I will probably ride it well into the final innings as I think that Englands edge gets stronger as the game goes on. I should also admit that I have a fondness for betting Fairytale Endings in Sport and the Fairytale Ending for this series is a nail-biting finish to the final match with the scores already tied at 2-2. That means England would need to win this one and so they have the Fairytale Factor in their favour too. Good luck to you, ya Pommie Bastards!