Cricket: England vs India Test Series

[Leeds Legend]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series Dravid played superbly yesterday, one of the forgotten great batsmen of any era. The rest of the players were a bit slapdash, Tendulkar played well before getting out..... England bowled really well, getting the ball on the right length and letting the pitch do the work. For India, Sharma bowled horrendously in the first dig, too short, then too wide etc etc - if he pulls his finger out they've half a chance of knocking them over. Realistically though it's about the declaration, then over to Swann. Like the commentators have just said, the deck is getting flatter for the seamers, which helps India.

[Tripcore]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series I'm going with the DRAW @ 1.72 in Bet365. Stake 4 2 days and still 2 teams to bat. England should make 250 - 300 and bring India to bat, but Indian players should defend this quite patiently.

[Bigtoe82]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series

:welcome to PL. Any reasoning to go with your bets?

Thank you and apologies for no reasoning was in a rush and haven't been available the last couple of days. 1.5pts Zaheer Khan top Indian series wicket taker. Looking pretty unlikely now tbh due to injury but he is/was the leader of the Indian bowling attack when fit, conditions should suit him. Always impressed by his bowling and has good previous record against England. 1pt England Draw No Bet This was done in-play during the 1st day. Weather was looking as though it would play a major part and draw was perhaps the favorite result. I felt as though England of late have been pretty consistent at posting solid 1st Innings scores (Whilst batting first) and are a real top test team now. Therefore felt our preparation + recent performances gave us the edge against India and with the weather forecasting rain, India would have a small chance of winning whereas a solid 1st batting performance from England would make it extremely difficult for India.

[jackierubberleg]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series I'm no expert on the test game but what chance if any has England of bowling out India today? opinions welcomed.

[BIG X]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series

I'm no expert on the test game but what chance if any has England of bowling out India today? opinions welcomed.

I was just about to say we need another wicket before lunch to have a chance..... We now have that wicket so game on IMO Not saying I'm a cricket expert though :)

[Mirage]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series Fantastic performance from England. Put in to bat, never lost 10 wickets in an innings and to get 20 wickets on that pitch was a brilliant performance. Cracking game. Well done on the winners guys!

[PerryPFC]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series

The odds on the draw are lengthening. There will be rain about in the 1st Test but it will be the odd shower here or there. The forecast is a lot better than it was. Let's hope Cook comes through and the rain stays away for all of our sakes. Thinking of a few more so may come back with them later. Right. Let's do this. - 3pts England to win the 1st Test @ 9/4 [WillHill] I'm sorry but England have to be taken at this price in home conditions. We all know England are a good side that are brimming with confidence. They announced their 12-man squad LONG before the start of this test and know exactly what to expect when they line up tomorrow. India on the other hand haven't played as a unit in God's knows how long, got spanked by Somerset the other day for three days and are notorious slow-starters in Test Series. To add to that, India have lost 10 out of 15 visits to Lords in their history winning only one of those fifteen matches. I'm not wholly convinced about Mukund as an opener. As much as I love Gautam Gambhir too (no homo), he has never played a Test Match in England before. There is a 99% chance of cloud cover tomorrow too which suits England down to the ground. Noone knows how well the Indians will cope with the seaming ball and likewise no-one knows how well the Indian bowling attack will cope with it. All the signs point to England here and even though there is rain about and the draw is as low as 1.8 in places, I'm happy to be on the home side. Lords is notorious for not producing many results which is something else I know, however, despite all this, England for me all day. - 6pts England 1st Innings Runs: Over 379.5 @ 5/6 [Ladbrokes] Lords is a road. Flat deck. Expect runs. Lots of them. Average first innings score there in the last 10 test matches is 410. India come tomorrow with a bowling attack that England can get on top of. They played Andrew Strauss into form last week and I can only see runs coming from Cook, KP, Trotty, Belly and Morgan. Last month England got 486 here in the 1st innings against Sri Lanka and they replied with an innings of 479. Big scores aren't too rare here and there should be another tomorrow. I have no idea on how India will cope tomorrow so will avoid their runs line and just go with England's. - 4pts Player Performance: Matt Prior Over 83.5 @ 9/10 [Cricketbetlive] Matt Prior loves Lords. I like to look at his player performance lines every Lords test because he has a great record there. Just last month he scored 126 there in England's 1st Innings and has a pretty impressive average there to boot (46.90). Points will automatically come in the field too. There is always a stumping chance off Graeme Swann and there will always be edges from Anderson, Tremlett and or Broad/Bresnan. 50 points in the field is not too far from Prior's grasp which leaves a minimal amount of runs to make up the numbers. There's not really too much to add here. He has three viable methods of scoring points here and there is plenty of scope for overs. I'm happy to be on here definitely.

Full house :notworthy And some lively series bets including both of Kevs Eng win 1st test and..... Didn't do anything, missed the series bets and 1st test but will be eager to see what you guys come up with for the 2nd test!

[Tyler]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series

WIN- 3pts England to win the 1st Test @ 9/4 [WillHill] WIN- 6pts England 1st Innings Runs: Over 379.5 @ 5/6 [Ladbrokes] WIN- 4pts Player Performance: Matt Prior Over 83.5 @ 9/10 [Cricketbetlive]

Very happy with that. Great result for England too. Only that annoying Session Runs bet on saturday prevented this from being a full house. With all things said, +9.35 to start this test series. Roll on Friday! EDIT: Thanks Perry didn't see your post there. You're right though, a few series bets looking good. Tremlett didn't do much harm with four match wickets. Neither did Raina for Westy with a brilliant innings today. Praveen Kumar bagged a few for Kev whilst Bell chipped in with a few runs also. Not getting ahead of myself by any means but it's definitely a good start for the thread. :ok

[BIG X]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series

Can't wait for this series to start, fingers crossed we get better weather than the Sri Lanka tests. 5pts - England v India - Top England series run scorer A Cook @ 4.33 Betfred

I think I put the mockers on Cook a bit but a great start to the series and some good shouts in here guys :clap :clap :clap Roll on Friday.

[kevshat]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series Great shouts there Tyler :clap. Slow start to the series for me but that was how I wanted it. +0.33 overall but very happy with how a few of my outrights sit, not least the Eng win match but not series double. A cracking start to the series on the field. Can't wait for Friday. This has the makings of a really fantastic series.

[Tyler]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series I'm going to be out most of tomorrow so will get my bets up now. 4 for me: 3pts England to win the 2nd Test @ 6/5 [stanJames] Every sign points to England here; It'll be foolish not to take this on at this price. Right now, England, in my eyes are the best test-side in the world. I can't look past them in home conditions here at Trent Bridge. I was listening to Tuffers&Vaughans radio show on BBC iPlayer the other day and some good points were raised by both parties. There isn't a single player in the England XI right now who is out of form or on the brink of getting dropped. The only person who was close to recently as we all know was Stuart Broad and he came out and produced one of his best performances ever in an England shirt. Confidence is sky high right now and they go up against an Indian side here who are all over the place. They don't look a great unit, they have injuries in their side and they have a few players in their midst who have very little cricket under their belts. The injury to Zaheer Khan is a fxckery for them. If they play Zaheer Khan on friday, they know he won't be 100% fit. Do they risk him here at Trent Bridge knowing that they have two more tests on the horizon? If they drop him, do they bring in the unpredictable Sreesanth or the unproven-in-English-conditions Munaf? Do they drop Harbhajan (who looked distinctly out-of-sorts at Lords and replace with Yuvraj? Does Mukund make-way and Yuvraj and Zaheer both play? Questions, questions and more questions for Dhoni to ponder as well as the cloud hanging over Sachin who missed quite a bit of the Lords test with a 'viral injury'. The annoying thing is we won't really know what the answers will be until the toss on Friday but there is unrest in the Indian camp and that will only be to their detriment. Fortunately, Trent Bridge is a happy-hunting ground for the Indian massive. India have played here twice in the past 10 years winning one and drawing once with the most recent match in 2007 being a comfortable seven-wicket win after skittling out for under 200 in the 1st innings. Zaheer Khan has a great record here taking 9 match wickets in 2007. On top of this, they are very famous slow starters in test-series, losing the 1st Test matches in recent tours to Australia and South Africa and still avoiding series defeats. With all that said though, England will be where my money is. Magnificent TEAM performance at Lords, complete ease in the camp, good-swinging home conditions make it not too hard to side with them here. I wouldn't advise rushing to your nearest bookmaker and backing England with all you've got, (hence the conservative stake). India do still possess bags of quality, however, I still feel England at 2.20 are worth a punt and I will play to see England extend their recent record of 5 wins in their last 7 Tests at Trent Bridge. 4pts Player Performance: James Anderson 99.5 & Over @ 9/10 [Cricketbetlive] 0.75pts Man of the Match: James Anderson 11/1 [WillHill] James Andersons record here is stupidly good. He has taken the Man of the Match award twice in his last two matches at Trent Bridge and with that amazing 5-for the other day at Lords, I really wouldn't past him making it a hat-trick. He has played four test matches here for England and in those four games, he has taken 28 wickets @ 15.89. Yes that's 28 wickets at under sixteens. In 2003 he got 7/119 vs South Africa, against the Indians in '07 he took 1/157 which isn't brilliant at all. However since then, 9/98 against New Zealand in '08 and 11/71 against Pakistan last year. Stupid numbers. It's not too difficult to figure out why I have plumped for him to get MOM again and likewise why I have plucked his Player Performance at 100+. Five match wickets is not too beyond Jimmy at Trent Bridge at all. The developments at the ground have seemingly made it a swinging haven and those will suit Jimmy more so than any other bowler in world cricket. Overs for me all day. 5pts Player Performance: Praveen Kumar 72.5 & Over @ 9/10 [Cricketbetlive] This is a very similar bet to the above. The conditions aforementioned at Trent Bridge will suit Praveen Kumar down to the ground and with the potential absence of Zaheer, I can only see more wickets for Kumar. He only requires four match wickets for this to come in and again that is well within reach. Suresh Raina with the bat and Kumar with the ball are some of the limited positives India can take from West London and that should set him well here in Nottingham. His see-it-slap-it attitude with the bat could help us out here too. He scored 19 runs at Lords which, if replicated here would help us out a lot. Thirteen runs would take this down to three-match wickets which is a fairly comfortable return for Kumar in favourable conditions, not to mention the unlikely-but-still-possible chance of a catch. Overs for me.

[kevshat]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series 5 for me in this test. Still fancy India to go well here but I'll give them a day first to see how they line up. 4pts M.Prior's Performance Pts - 95&Over 5/6 Bet365 Points are scored as follows: 1pt per run, 10pts per catch & 25pts per stumping. Matt Prior had an excellent first test and that's led to a lot of people calling him the best wicket-keeper batsman in the world at the minute. I wouldn't say I necessarily disagree with that either. He went close to covering this total in both innings at Lords with 71 and an unbeaten ton. With catches as well his final total in that match was 224pts and I wouldn't rule out a similar outcome here. I would expect him to score sufficient runs in this test match and with the swinging conditions I would expect him to take a few catches as well. He could quite easily gain half of this total in catches and I would be very surprised if given the form he's in with the willow he can't polish the rest off with the bat. The ground is no problem for him as he hit a ton against a very talented Pakistan attack here last summer admittedly in an innings which England were controlling for a declaration. Prior's going really well with the bat and England have the armoury to get the snicks so this 95pt target looks well within reach. 4pts H.Singh's Performance Pts - Under 97 5/6 Bet365 Points are scored as follows: 1pt per run, 10pts per catch & 20pts per wicket. I thought Harbhajan was crap at Lord's and I don't expect him to be a whole lot better here on a wicket which doesn't really suit spin at all. He may pick up the odd wicket while he's bowling at the tail but he won't be a prominent feature in the wickets while the ball swings around for the seamers. It looks like Gautam Gambhir will miss out here so Yuvraj looks set to take his place and he could well get a fair chunk of the overs Harbhajan would normally bowl, especially while Kevin Pietersen is at the crease. I don't see Harbhajan taking 5 wickets in this match. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't get more than 2. So he's going to have to do a lot of batting to parachute up to 97pts. England have got him with the short ball and with the moving ball so I don't see his slap and tickle batting style having too much joy here so I'm confident Harbhajan's total, which made up a total of 32 at Lords, will get nowhere near 97pts at Trent Bridge. 3pts A.Mukund's 1st Inns Runs - Under 28.5 5/6 Stan James I've seen nothing in Abhinav Mukund's brief test career that suggests he can play the moving ball yet. Fair play he got 49 in the first knock at Lords but England bowled so much on his pads in the first 12-15 overs he was almost given half of those runs. His technique doesn't give me any indication that he can play a moving ball. He goes after balls which are too wide and he defends with a closed bat face - both of which leave himself wide open to a inswinger through the gate. If the ball doesn't swing in but holds it's line he's liable to catch the outside edge as well. I think England will have their work cut out with the ball in this match as I expect the Indians to bat a lot better than they did at Lords but I don't expect them to have too much trouble grabbing Mukund's wicket. 1pt ew M.Prior Top England Batsman (1st Inns Only) 12/1 Coral (1/5 1,2,3) We get the win part of this bet back if Kevin Pietersen top scores. Given that only Kevin Pietersen beat Matt Prior in the first innings at Lord's and then the keeper himself top scored in the 2nd innings these are very generous odds for England's keeper. The ball will do a bit here and the openers and next two might have a few difficulties before they get in which would be good for Prior who is clearly in excellent form. Throw in his winning ton in the second innings here last year and I think we've got a good bet here. It wouldn't surprise me if England were in a bit of trouble at say 120/5 and needing Prior to deliver again, something he's making a habit of. If Bresnan replaces Tremlett then England's batting below Prior is strengthened giving him longer at the crease too. I think this is an excellent each way bet. Given that this is KP's former home ground the money back offer is an attractive one and it makes the Prior pick even better value. 2pts T.Bresnan Top England Bowler (1st Inns Only) 6/1 Coral This is a massive price for me. By calling up Steven Finn as cover England have as good as admitted Chris Tremlett isn't playing in this match so Tim Bresnan looks the natural one to step in with the swinging conditions that the new stands at Trent Bridge have created. Given that Bresnan swings it like Anderson I don't see how Anderson is a third of Bresnan's price. He's certainly not 3 times as good a bowler. Anderson has an insane record at Trent Bridge in test cricket but most of his wickets have come against New Zealand and Pakistan. He only took one wicket against India when they played here in 2007. I didn't think Anderson bowled all that well at Lord's first time around either and if Billy Bowden had his proper eyes in then Broad would've had 2 of his wickets from the 2nd innings as well. Bresnan will come in and swing the ball and I think he has every chance of taking the most wickets in the first innings especially as Duncan Fletcher never really worked with the Yorkshireman whereas he worked permanently with Anderson and will have formed plans for his batters to try and combat him with. There's no way Bresnan is a 6/1 shot here especially if he gets the new ball which he should do. Bresnan picked up 11 wickets in unfriendly conditions in two tests in Australia so he's no bigger than a 3/1 shot for me here. 6/1 is massive and I'm happy to be on.

[Charlie Wong]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series I think India will be a whole lot better after getting lords out the way, should be more settled now, plus they have a decent record at TB, a venue where not many draws come up, no doubt both teams will be desperate for a won for different reasons, think the value may lie with India, so will take them to bounce back here. 7/2 India win @ paddypower

[citizen frank]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series just took 9/1 draw on the assumption england hang about a bit,then india take their time building up a big score,leaving england to try and save the game.b.o.l.bet 365

[citizen frank]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series

just took 9/1 draw on the assumption england hang about a bit' date='then india take their time building up a big score,leaving england to try and save the game.b.o.l.bet 365[/quote'] englands tail done their job,big slow score by india now,then who noes.11/2 at stumps bet 365.

[kevshat]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series I can't believe the price of this draw. 6/1 is ridiculous. It should be 60/1 minimum. This match is going to need a day of rain just to see day 5 let alone play out a day 5 :unsure.

[Leeds Legend]

I wish I'd read this page yesterday. Good work lads. Definitely can't see a draw in this one, England will have their work cut out knocking India over today who should have a nice lead after the first dig. England will have to bat well to set the Indians a decent target on a pitch that might turn benign on the last couple of days.

[citizen frank]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series down to 7/2 now at lunch.

[Spooner]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series Broad's coming alive this series.

[Charlie Wong]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series eng 24-2 in effect, with Trott not batting, still 40 odd behind. Broad bowled well put that Erasmus is shocking if you cant a healthy edge like that onto the pad, poor. Rauf has been superb though.

[winbet]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series India curently 1.93 for the win on betfair which looks too high to me. with England still 43 runs behind and in effect just the 8 wickets in hand.

[Tyler]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series This is just ridiculous. I'm watching this Test in actual disbelief at how poor India are bowling. There seems to be a real lack of belief in this India side and it's worrying. Very worrying. 100 runs have been scored in the 1st hour of play this morning from England's #8 and #9. Embarassing.

[kevshat]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series Very quick in play bet for me. 5pts Match to finish on Day 4 4/5 Blue Square 32 overs left as I type, deck of cards element to the tail and England bowlers in full swing. Extra half an hour available too if it's tight. This should be 1/5 not 4/5.

[kevshat]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series Blimey. Maybe I should put up in play bets all the time if that happens. 3 balls after posting and a wicket falls :loon.

[Tyler]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series

WIN - 3pts England to win the 2nd Test @ 6/5 [stanJames] WIN - 4pts Player Performance: James Anderson 99.5 & Over @ 9/10 [Cricketbetlive] LOSS - 0.75pts Man of the Match: James Anderson 11/1 [WillHill] WIN - 5pts Player Performance: Praveen Kumar 72.5 & Over @ 9/10 [Cricketbetlive]

Very happy with that. Really do think this India team have some serious issues to address ahead of the 3rd Test. England really did batter them here after seemingly looking at a defeat after the first day. Another profitable couple of days for me though with the three main bets all coming in leaving me +10.95 for the Test and a healthy +20.30 in the series. Some top shouts this week from Kev too meaning another very profitable couple of days for the thread. Same again at Edgbaston :ok

[kevshat]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series Good stuff Tyler. All my main bets came in so I made 9.17pts on the test match and my first outright came in via the Bell runs, somewhat fortunately because he should never have been batting after tea on day 3. Obviously England can't lose the series so I lose a point there but overall I'm +11 for the series heading into Edgbaston.

[Tyler]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series Edgbaston starts tomorrow. Hoping to maintain a good start in this series with the following: - 4pts England to win the 3rd Test @ 27/20 [bet365] This is starting to become a staple bet in this series but time-and-time again I find myself asking the bookmakers are offering such generous prices on a home win. We'll start with the recent Test-Match history regarding Birmingham. In the last ten years, England have won 6 of 8 Tests they have played at Edgbaston. They have a better record at Edgbaston than any other major home stadium and it had effectively become somewhat of a fortress in recent years for us. We crushed Pakistan here last summer, crushed Sri Lanka a few years ago and we probably would've beaten South Africa if it wasn't for a brilliant unbeaten 150 from Graeme Smith in '08. Teams in the sub-continent also don't fare well here either. I've already alluded to the fact that Pakistan got battered here last year and Sri Lanka have been equally bodied here twice in the past ten, with one being a heavy innings defeat in '02. The curator has told us that we can expect a green top tomorrow, which is just the catalyst to further English success especially with the team news coming out of the Indian camp this week.... Zaheer Khan will miss the whole series with the injury he suffered in the 1st Test. Even though he has been largely ineffective so far, Harbhajan Singh is also missing alongside Yuvraj Singh. In come three talented but very unproven players Virat Kohli, RP Singh and Amit Mishra. That won't bode well for the Indian side with nerves and a distinct lack of match practice under their belts. If selected, RP Singh may be a beneficiary of the seaming conditions but being able with no experience of playing in English overcast conditions, it's more likely that he'll struggle. Obviously the big news is Virender Sehwag returning. I'm not getting over excited about that though, he has only one very short innings under his belt and to say he's going to be India's saviour is very ambitious. England on the other hand only have the exclusion of Jonathon Trott to worry about. To be honest, it's not much of a worry, Ravi Bopara comes in, in place of him and I think that's not mcuh of an issue. I've always been a fan of Ravi. Top player. The bowling attack should love the track here at Edgbaston and I am confident Jimmy, Bressy, Broady and Swanny can continue their brilliant play. Once again, all the signs point to England at Edgbaston and at this top price, I expect them to continue their brilliant record here. - 7pts 1st Innings Runs: India Under 350.5 @ 5/6 [Ladbrokes] India haven't scored more than 300 runs in an innings this series. Their batting has been very suspect this summer and a lot of their players have been exposed with their weakness to the short ball in particular. England have all the tools in their armoury to throw everything at the Indians and I mentioned earlier that I don't think the inclusion of Virender Sehwag is going to change much here for the Indian massive. To make matters worse, the 1st innings history at Edgbaston is dire for all away teams. These are all the first innings scores in the recent years for the away team at Birmingham: Pakistan '10 - 72. Australia '09 - 263. South Africa '08 - 314. Sri Lanka '06 - 141. Australia '05 - 308. West Indies '04 - 336. England have a great history of restricting sides to big first innings scores here and with the problems that the Indian team face right now, I am very happy to be on unders right here. - 5pts Player Performance: S. Sreeshanth 79.5&Over @ 9/10 [Cricketbetlive] Self explanatory really. Only four match wickets required here for Sreeshanth to see this over the line and he has the talent to do it easy. A clear threat for England with the brilliant shape he can get on a new and old cherry. Good pace to back up his clear seam movement. 97 points he scored at Trent Bridge in what was his first test for a long, long time. Confident he can do the business here in what is a very bowler-friendly arena. - 1pt Test Match End: Day 4 Session 3 @ 6/1 [betfair] - 1pt Test Match End: Day 5 Session 1 @ 5/1 [betfair] This is a result wicket. There have been results in all four-day championship games here this season and with what is expected to be a lively track, I expect a lot of wickets to fall and some pretty low scores. There is some light rain about so I have got cover with the 1st Session on Day 5 but I genuinely think that this will be wrapped up by the end of Friday night. Not really much else to add here. Suspect, batting and very impressive bowling should spell a quick-ish result so I'll get a nice spread over the two sessions at a nice price. Best of luck to all others getting involved this week :hope

[kevshat]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series A few for me here. 7pts England to be bowled out in 1st Inns 8/11 Blue Square No idea why they've priced this up and I've certainly no idea why it's so big. I'm guessing it comes as a reaction to India having no Zaheer Khan but they had no Zaheer at Trent Bridge and they still bowled us out in the first innings. Harbhajan's absence can't exactly be used as a reason for the price because he's done nothing with the ball in the series. Praveen Kumar and Ishant Sharma have shown they are capable with the ball and Sreesanth bowled well at Trent Bridge. England declared their first innings at Lords but Lords is a pancake and India lost Zaheer after 45 minutes and had Dhoni bowling for them at one stage. You have to believe if India don't suffered any lameness with their bowlers that on a green wicket which produces some result cricket at the minute and with the potential of some serious swing with that gigantic pavilion now up that they should bowl England out for however many runs it takes. England's batting line up is weaker with Bopara in for Trott and while England bat a long way down I still think this is too big to ignore. 5pts India 1st Inns - Race to 10 runs - V.Sehwag to beat G.Gambhir 8/11 Stan James Bets are void if both men don't open or if either doesn't make it to 10 runs. With the rules in place I've no idea where this price is coming from either. Ok Sehwag's been out injured but he only bats one way and he's either going to be out before 10 in which case the bet is void or he's going to swing his way to 10 pretty quickly. England's bowlers will probably pitch a few up to him initially to try and swing it and catch the edge and given that Sehwag sees ball and clumps it a mile if he makes it to 10 I can't see how we won't be collecting here unless Gambhir doesn't make it to 10. Gambhir likes to play himself in and get a feel for conditions and nudge and nurdle before he attacks. Sehwag's usually at about 150 in that time so in a race to 10 with no loss if he doesn't make 10 he should be about 1/11 not 8/11. I'm happy to be on that coming back from injury or not coming back from injury. 5pts M.Prior's Performance Pts - 90&Over 5/6 Bet365 Points are scored as follows: 1pt per run, 10pts per catch & 25pts per stumping: I've no idea how Matt Prior's performance line has gone down since Trent Bridge but I shan't complain. He's in prestine form with the bat and this England attack are always going to get snicks behind for him. If the wicket remains as green as it is being talked about and with the cloud cover that is around for the opening 2-3 days of the test match then Prior should get lots of work with his gloves. With the bat he may only bat once but we've seen in both tests so far that he only needs to bat once. If he bats twice the chances are he'll cover this with the bat. If he doesn't we should get the catches to add to any kind of average first innings. A good first innings and it's in. Overs here. 4pts G.Swann's Performance Pts - Under 109 5/6 Bet365 Points are scored as follows: 1pt per run, 10pts per catch & 20pts per wicket. Graeme Swann hasn't had the best of series thus far and I see no reason why that's automatically going to change on a green top here at Edgbaston. England's initial burst with the seamers is taking so many wickets Swann isn't getting much of a bowl and when he does he's getting attacked straight away by good players of spin. Realistically he needs to take 4 wickets minimum here barring something daft with the bat which although he's capable of it he's down at 10 now. I know he can score with catches but realistically he isn't going to score 'that' many with catches and while he's taking catches he isn't taking wickets. Only 2 wickets in the series so far and 55 runs as well as 2 catches equates to a series total of 115. I don't see him almost equalling that this week. 3pts A.Cook's Performance Pts - Under 88 5/6 Bet365 Points are scored as follows: 1pt per run, 10pts per catch & 20pts per wicket. Alastair Cook has had a shocking series so far and again on a green wicket I'm not sure it's automatically going to improve. This isn't his favourite ground here anyway given that his test average is just 27 and that's inflated with a not out as well. His last 4 test innings on this ground have been 9, 0, 17 and 4. He's only scored 20 runs in the series to date and while he's due he's one of these peaks and troughs batsmen so the trough could continue for a bit longer yet. I think there's a 30-40% chance England will only bat significantly once here so it would need to be a massive improvement for Cook to cover this and I'm just not sure we're going to see it. 0.5pts ew P.Kumar Top India Batsman (1st Inns Only) 66/1 Coral (1/5 1,2,3) Praveen Kumar is a big price here. He's got a 17 and a third placed 25 in this series so far and with England's bowlers having the wicket perfectly suited to them and some of the stuffing knocked out of the Indians I think he's worth chancing here as a quick 20 could be enough to place quite easily. Admittedly Gambhir and Sehwag coming in strengthens their batting line up when they replace Mukund and the short ball fallable Yuvraj but neither of them are guaranteed to nail the first innings. England are bowling well enough and with Raina, Sachin to an extent and Dhoni especially all struggling I think Kumar, who I expect to bat at 8 here given that he batted above Mishra in the Caribbean, is worth chancing at 66/1. There may be nothing in it but he can hold a bat and he can swing it and with the new boundaries here he might just get a few away to them and run into the money.

[slizorn]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series Just been following kev and others in this thread for the past two matches. Going to get involved myself now. Don't know how much more I can add to what has already been said above, but I will try my best to make my own opinion having followed both past matches closely.

Sport	Cricket
Event	England vs India 3rd Test
Selection	G.Swann's Performance Points - Under 109 points
Strength	10/10
Date	10/08/2011
Bookmaker/Price	Bet365 @ 1.83
Reasoning	Firstly the player performances bets. Going to hit this bet with full stakes as I really like it. In the last two matches, Swann has only managed two wickets and not a lot of runs over the two matches put together. I see no reason how he can suddenly up his performance despite playing at this new ground. He comes near the very end in the batting order and based on his performance thus far I would expect him to bowl a limited number of overs in comparison to those who have had more success with the wickets. All in all, I think this line is set ridiculously high based on his last two performances and I expect this line to hold out.

[slizorn]

Re: Cricket: England vs India Test Series

Sport	Cricket
Event	England vs India 3rd Test
Selection	M.Prior's Performance Points - 90 & Over
Strength	7/10
Date	10/08/2011
Bookmaker/Price	Bet365 @ 1.83
Reasoning	Fairly confident stake going into this bet. Not sure why this line keeps going lower. Matt Prior can score with the bat and through his wicket keeping. Both times, Matt Prior has come through on this line and I see no reason why he shouldn't be able to do so in this 3rd test. He is a good batsman and as he has shown over the last two test matches he can definitely score with the bat. All in all I feel this line does no jsutice to M.Prior and I fully expect him to come through with his batting and wicket keeping. Though a stumping is highly unlikely, in the event it does happen it will take this line about a third through. 1pt per run scored by the bat, 10pts for each catch, 25pts per stumping.