Ashes Test Cricket : Day 1 Betting Analysis

I tried to write this post yesterday. I figured if I’m going to do a Betting Analysis for the Ashes it’d be best to do it BEFORE the series actually started but I found myself looking at some big unknowns with huge variance and my betting plan had a whole lot of “IF THIS THEN THAT” type of notations. Needless to say it was over-complicated and a bit of a mess. Trying to make a post out of that would have come out pretty garbled. So here we are instead at the end of Day 1 and a few of those big unknowns are now known so it’s looking a bit simpler…

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The big unknowns were the Toss, Pitch and Team Selections. I knew that England had requested Fast and Flat Wickets for this series so I was pretty confident it would be a Win the Toss and Bat First type of game and the Toss would be super important. There was a lot of talk around Mitchell Starc who I thought bowled poorly in the WTC Final and at the risk of losing diversity and synergy in the Australian bowling attack I was happy to see him left out. I could probably write pages about the English Bazball Phenomenon but it’s already been done to death by mainstream pundits so if you’re a cricket fan then you’re probably across it. Personally I think it’s great to see England break from their traditional dour and conservative play style...though it kind of bit me in the ass on Day 1.

When the pitch proved to be flat and England went in to bat I thought we’d be in for a run-fest so I backed Joe Root for a Century and England to hit 400+ runs. Root came through for me, but when I found out that England made a Sporting Declaration at 393 for 8 this morning my head almost exploded. At least I wasn’t really wrong but it still really stings to lose like that!

Deep breath….ok, so what from here? I’m still on for runs with Australia in the 2nd Innings and the line is at 396. The biggest risk here is that Cummins declares at 394 with a 1 run Innings lead and tries to out-do the English declaration. If that happens I might go quiet for a bit while I am scraping my splattered brain goo off the walls of my office, but I’m confident that Australia will be true to their own style of cricket and push for every run they can get. I’ve also got Dave Warner for a Century at 10.00 which is great value if he can get his eye in and it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if he got 200. The whole English strategy and pitch request is about having a team and conditions that suit Flat Track Bullies and on Australias side Dave Warner is the Flat Track Bully who loves it Fast and Flat so he can exploit conditions IF he’s ON.

Longer term there is some rain around later in the test and England have already shown their hand with their first declaration so betting the Draw is a BIG RISK. I’m expecting another Sporting Declaration at the end of the 3rd Innings designed to set up a get-able run chase for Australia in the 4th Innings. Other than backing Runs early in this Test I’m looking to see Australia show some grit in the 4th Innings and grind out whatever is required so there might be some real value backing Australia late in the 3rd Innings because the market may not be expecting such an early declaration and the Draw could get really short. There could be some excellent value there though Stokes has kind of already shown his hand so the market may be wise to it. It'll be a price dependent play.

If Australia has a big edge in this series then it’s in the spin bowling department and if the pitch is still in reasonable shape late in the game I can see Moeen Ali struggling to close out the final innings like a good spinner should. Australia have had good recent experience playing on dusty spinning tracks in recent times so they could be Late Game Specials for the entire series.

Australia 1st Innings to Score 396+ : 4 units @ 2.00
David Warner To Score 100+ : 0.5 unit @ 10.00