Test Series: England vs Bangladesh

[Quandram]

Ladies and gentlemen I give you the start of the English summer.

This is not an easy series to punt on. Having just beaten them in their own yard England now face Bangladesh for two tests at home. It should be an absolute cakewalk. England should win with time to spare (and plenty of it). Which makes betting life tricky.

Bangladesh are not a team suited to English conditions. Not the biggest bunch you'll see (only one man over 6ft) which will cause them issues both trying to bowl us out and in facing some of our quicks with the ball coming on to them at heights they are unlikely to be too comfortable with.

England are 1.1 for the first test and 1.3 to take the series 2-0. Realistically only losing 2+ days to rain can stop us and there doesn't seem to be enough of that about for the first test certainly. I could write words like backing England to win is like buying money. I wont as we all know how that ends up. But I could. And i'd probably be right.

Player markets aren't easy either as it's entirely possible that we'll only bat once and if we do bat twice we shouldn't be going lower than 3 in the second innings. The only thing that is nigh on certain is that Bangladesh will bat twice. Which, for the uninitiated, means we will bowl twice.

So on that bombshell.

Buy Finn player performance @ 98 for 0.2pts

I think we'll stick with the formula of 6 batsmen, Wickie and 4 bowlers. We don't need the extra batsmen here but we will in the winter (although we'll need a 5th bowler in my opinion in the winter too so exactly how the selectors work that out is another matter) and I think having played like that in Bangladesh we'll line up the same. So Finn will get plenty of chance to bowl. For me he should open with Anderson. There's talk of him being given plenty of time over the summer to prove himself and get on the plane to Oz.

Height is his main asset and this is his home wicket so he should know what's what. If the wickets are spread evenly each bowler will get 5 in the match. I'd expect the pace boys to get more than their share (not saying Swanny can't chip in here but I expect the Bangles to be much more comfortable against him than the quicks).

It was a toss up between the bowling index 47-52 and the performance 90-98. Taking the performance i don't get the 5 wickets in an innings bonus but I do get 5 wickets in the match on my side (plus any catches (slim) or runs (very slim)). Just makes me feel better having 5 as a small + rather than a small -

[7HEGR1MR3AP3R]

Spot on that Q! lol

Jonathan Trott could he very hard to shift, and the 6/4 on him scoring a 50 looks very tasty to me

[7HEGR1MR3AP3R]

Trott 76 not out

[7HEGR1MR3AP3R]

Make that 176 , not out !!

[rcgills]

Good call Grim

[Quandram]

Nice bet Grim, Trott played really well the first day

Quick additional punt for me...

2pts Test Match End: Day 5: Morning @ 4.4 BetFair

I think/hope/pray that we'll skittle the remaining Bangladesh wickets inside the target. If we don't enforce the follow-on (and listening to those in the know we will) then someone needs shooting. The first Bangladesh innings has taken 81 overs so far... i'd expect it to be done inside 90. Another 90 overs for their second innings gives us an end tomorrow morning. The 1st innings has been a mixed bag for Bangladesh... good start combined with England not bowling very well and then a flurry of wickets with the bad light issues and a much improved bowling performance. I think Bangladesh will bat much the same in the second innings, don't think they have it in them to defend and play for the draw but playing to take England to 5 days at Lords might be enough incentive for those capable of a more restrained innings.

[Quandram]

The astute among you will notice that the odds for the previous punt are now out to about 70/1.. things didn't go well.

Time to recover. Bangladesh are 325/5 (effectively 105 ahead with 5 wickets down). The runs are relevant but not as relevant as the time at this stage.

Of the remaining batsmen we have 2 tail enders who whilst they aren't an absolute utter disgrace with the bat shouldn't be relied upon to bat much time. The other three are all decent but they'll need to bat well past lunch to stop England having a pretty achieveable target. I don't see it. The new ball is still hard and if we get at least two wickets this morning the end is night and we can should be well capable of chasing down whatever target is set.

20pts England win @ 1.46 Betfair

[Quandram]

Well whilst I can't grumble with the way the punting turned out (+6.74 on the bets and the spread finished at 183 (would have been a bit better on the bowling index as it turned out but c'est la vie)) the way our bowling attack struggled at times is a concern when looking ahead to the bigger fish to fry. When the Bangles step up their bowling they'll be a decent test.

[Quandram]

Anyone looking for thoughts for the second test could do worse than read the first post again.

Same rules apply.

If anything more so.

Bangladesh proved that they can bat with flamboyance (helped by a not hugely lively pitch and some poor bowling in patches) but their bowling proved to be a real weak point. The fact we were bowled out for as little as 505 was mostly our own fault with some deeply careless batting from Prior and KP and a couple of marginally poor decisions for Cook.

Trafford should have a bit more in the pitch and I don't envisage the same under performance from the bowlers. Swann should find it more to his liking, Anderson has shaken off the rust, Finn will find more for him and should open the bowling (he should have opened it before but he surely must now) and i'd give the 4th spot to Shahzad. Sidebottom is a backwards step for me. If we were preparing for an Ashes series in this country then there's a case to be made but for one in Oz... i think not.

Whilst we may need 5 bowlers later in the year I doubt they'll make the change here so wickets between 4 bowlers again and again i'm backing Finn.

Buy Finn Player performance @ 112

The line has moved up, that's no shock and i'm on the performance market rather than the bowling to keep 6 wickets on my side this time. The likely promotion to opening and the extra in the pitch makes me feel it's worth it.

I have other thoughts swimming in my head but they shall remain there until the morning at least

[Quandram]

None of the swimming has come to anything useful.

I might look to back Strauss first innings runs on the spread (depending on what it is) as he's been without a ton in a while at international level and looked pretty good at Lords getting 80 in both innings. I could back him on the match spread at 100 ish but I think there's more risk here of England only batting the once so want to play this innings by innings.

Wait and see what the toss comes out at now and if that throws up anything (Bangladesh batting first makes it more likely that we'll only bat once and an early test match end etc...).