Cricket: England vs West Indies Twenty20 and 1 day Internationals

[kevshat]

England and the Windies resume battle with 2 Twenty20 Internationals and 3 ODI's. Schedule June 2007

Thu 28	1st T20I - England v West Indies Kennington Oval, London
Fri 29	2nd T20I - England v West Indies Kennington Oval, London
July 2007
Sun 1	1st ODI - England v West Indies Lord's, London
Wed 4	2nd ODI - England v West Indies Edgbaston, Birmingham
Sat 7	3rd ODI - England v West Indies Trent Bridge, Nottingham

1st Twenty20 Odds

Best odds/All odds
England	1.44	1.44	1.53	1.46	1.44	1.44	1.4	1.47	1.44	1.5	1.44	1.44	1.45	1.4	1.44	1.5	1.44	1.4	1.44	1.47	1.47
West Indies	2.62	2.62	2.38	2.99	2.62	2.62	2.75	2.63	2.62	2.6	2.62	2.62	2.7	2.8	2.62	2.8	2.62	2.75	2.62	3.05	2.66

I'll go with 3 for this 1st game. 10pts West Indies to win 1st Twenty20 3.00 Betfair After a tough test series for the Windies they now come into what they will consider their better form of the game. England will be boosted by the convincing way they won they test series and enter a new era in their 1 day cricket tonight when Paul Collingwood takes charge of his country for the 1st time. With the retirement of Brian Lara after the World Cup, Chris Gayle gets the honour of leading the Caribbean men in this series. The Oval takes centre stage for both these Twenty20 matches. England have called 2 new faces into their squad for this series. Warwickshire batsman Jon Trott comes in after impressing with a good season with the bat for the Bears and finally Hampshire's all rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas gets a go for his country. Established players Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss have been dropped from the squad as England look to go forward from the World Cup debacle. England have an injury doubt over Ian Bell but their other injury doubt - Jon Trott has been passed fit to play. An inexperienced bowling attack for England could be a worry as apart from Paul Collingwood no bowler in this side has more than 2 wickets to their name. Similar with the batsmen, only Marcus Trescothick has more than 100 runs and he's not available in this series so our leading batsman in terms of runs is Kevin Pietersen who has 56 to his name. West Indies are pretty inexperienced in Twenty20 having played only 1 match at international level. That was against New Zealand last year in a game that ended as a tie. They've played 2 warm up matches in this country though having been pretty much embarassed by Derbyshire in the 1st before thrashing the PCA Masters in the 2nd. In that match Chris Gayle came alive with an excellent 73 off just 34 balls. Sure it's difficult to make much of that given the attack he faced but at least he's scored some runs. Runako Morton, Denesh Ramdin and Devon Smith have all made runs since the test series and Shivnerine Chanderpaul will be back for this match. Marlon Samuels has been excellent with the ball and the all rounders Bravo, Sammy and Smith will be required to restrict England be it by bowling tight or taking regular wickets. Just because England have changed captain doesn't make us a good one day side suddenly. West Indies had a poor World Cup but showed at the Champions Trophy that they are a good one day side. Twenty20 started so well for England with a total thrashing of the Aussies at the Rose Bowl 2 years ago but since then we've lost our last 3. There's no way on 1 day form England should be 1/2 and shorter so the value lies with the Windies in a game they can definitely win. 5pts ew M.Prior Top England Batsman 9/2 Boylesports (1/4 1,2,3) Matt Prior enjoyed carting this West Indian attack all round the country in the test series. This time he'll get the opportunity to do the same only from opening the innings rather than batting at number 7. He has a Twenty20 average of 28.52 for Sussex with over 500 runs to his name in the competition. Those have come with a strike rate knocking on for 140 so he likes to get on with it. As he's a quick scorer and an opener tonight he should go close to top scoring. We know he can play against this attack as we've seen it all summer so far and I'll take the South African born Sussex keeper to top score here. 5pts ew R.Morton Top West Indies Batsman 11/2 Boylesports (1/4 1,2,3) Runako Morton showed flashes of what he can do in the test series. One thing he definitely showed was that he likes to get on with it. He made a half century in the test series unlike a lot of his colleagues and has already scored runs since then. He made a fluent 72 off just 61 balls against the England Lions at Worcester. 2 members of that Lions bowling attack may well be leading the England attack tonight in Anderson and Broad. Runako Morton has 5 half centuries and 2 centuries to his name in ODI's so we know he's talented and in a batting lineup where there are still questions to be answered he's a nice price to top score.

[2hcb]

Re: Cricket: England vs West Indies Twenty20 and 1 day Internationals

10pts West Indies to win 1st Twenty20 3.00 Betfair

I definately think that's the value here. England were a joke at the world cup and there aren't any new faces I think will change that overnight. although Windies are not T20 experienced, most of the England players won't have played it much for their counties either. We saw in the test series that Morton, Gayle, Bravo and others like to play shots and the good Oval pitch will suit their stand and deliver style of batting. I'd still favour England to win, but it should be alot closer than this.