ICC Cricket World Cup

[Swooperman]

Hmm, Bermuda being 45 all out doesnt bode well for my lowest score bets still, theyre on now

Ireland scared the living bejesus out of SA & should really have carried it off without a major late collapse.

That Dwayne Leverock can bowl man hes a good thing at 4/1 Stan James that I took half way through the match.

He is though, one big tub of lard

I was thinking of backing Bordern on past performances before today, & I can see him getting wickets through innocousisity (not sure thats a word tbh ) but my god, doesnt he look like George Dawes ....& that, obviously, was that

[Pie-chucker]

My analysis

SA. Chokers
Aus. McG & Watson will get tonked
Eng. Ordinary, crap top 3
Paks. Disarray
Ind. Chance
NZ. Smart outfit.
WI. Gayle to blast, canny bowling
SL. Big chance. Jaya, Sanga and Murali hold aces

So there are my semi-finalists. Look forward to Swoops reams of tournie bets but plenty of time yet.

[FC Basher]

I dont anything about Cricket,great work tho Swoops.
Ive gone for,Ross Taylor top batsman,Yuvrag top Indian batsman and Sri Lanka tourney winners.

Karthik is quoted at 67 by bet365 for top Indian batsman,is that big,Swoops mentioned him in a earlier post.

[Swooperman]

66's is massive on Karthik Basher, but its not certain he'll start. He played the last few ODIs prior to the WC & bats around 6 or 7 & is decent, but hes so big as the bookies think he'll be a back up player. I'm not so sure & I think India are live on Sky today playing a minnow in a warm up match so that may shed light.
For example I was looking at Strauss for top Englands series runs simply because I thought the 8/1 was a decent price, but with KP returning & taking the number 4 position he'd have to open as hes not going to unseat Bell or Colly. They plumped for Vaughan & Ed Joyce yesterday & Strauss certainly wasnt rested for being in good form so unless he returns for the Australian friendly on friday its fair to say he wont start & Joyce will. The reason that he may still be worth looking at is that Vaughan, of course, is built out of egg shells

[Swooperman]

Heres an interesting one then. I backed Sehwag @ 8/1 on Stan James a few days ago as Indian series runs & also backed Yuvraj a couple of weeks back @ 14's which has long gone. Sehwags opening with Ganguly versus the Dutch today & the 2 firms that quoted 8/1 (SJ & B365) have immediately cut him to 5/1 & 11/2......so they didnt expect him to open
I also had a small bet on him being top overall runscorer @ 50/1 with Laddies, theyve removed the Indian market but hes still up as 50's overall

[Swooperman]

India scored 300-9 versus Holland, but I must say I was massively more impressed with the Dutch than I was with the Bermudans yesterday.
As a rule most of the minnows do actually look the part, are keen in the field & do appear generally fit.....whereas Bermuda do look like a real old school village side, blacksmith, carpenter et al. Half of the Bermudans are quite overweight & they will be hopeless in the field. I know I'm hoping they dont get shelled for anything like yesterdays 45 but they could well be the unwanted holders of the largest ODI total set against, which I think is currently Holland after SL set 447 or something against them last year.

There was elements of Hollands bowling that could be admired, although Jonkmans 1st over going for 17 including 7 no balls wasnt one of them His opening partner Reekers looked ok & very much reminded me of Ian Austin of Lancashire & England & also De Leede bowled well. I've had both of these for series wickets as they both picked up wickets with genuine movement off the seam although they have little in the way of pace, which is essentially all of the minnows problems....on a given day theyve got people who can hold a bat, but essentially all theyve got are club bowlers

[Hippy Dave]

I've always thought the opposite Swoop - the bowling of most of the minnows isn't too bad for ODIs, but the batting is just not good enough.

[Swooperman]

'on a given day' mate, that means it wont happen every time. What I mean is look at the likes of Ireland & Scotland & they have blokes who've played at county level like Hamilton, Dougie Brown, the O'Briens, Ten Doeschate, David Hemp etc, etc, & on their day they can bat. But to survive on a decent track with the ball you have to have aq little bit extra. Obviously they could be a force on a poor track but generally theyre either not quick enough or dont do enough with the ball. Its a product of playing a poor level of cricket where dobbers rule. I know, I am one

[Swooperman]

Holland have proved everything I thought with the bat tbh, its Zuiderent & Ten Doeschate stick

[jackynwa]

3/1 one of the eight minnows qualify for Super 8s. Anyone fancy it? Only takes a win against a fellow minnow and an off day.

[Hippy Dave]

Don't agree still Swoop - if there is a big upset in this WC it will be because the bowlers have performed and bowled a team out cheaply, rather than one of the minnows setting/chasing down a big score.

[Hippy Dave]

Originally Posted by jackynwa

3/1 one of the eight minnows qualify for Super 8s. Anyone fancy it? Only takes a win against a fellow minnow and an off day.

I think it will need some help from the rain to be honest, not sure how much of that there's likely to be at this time of year in the WI. Swoops is the man for the weather forecasts.

[Swooperman]

We'll have to agree to disagree then Dave, as as far as I'm concerned for an upset the minnow will have to bat out of his socks & the big team bat like a bunch of twats as theres just no way that club bowlers should bowl out an international team unless they bat badly....or unless theyre caught on a bad deck. The bad deck isnt a non possibility for reasons I've already given, but as they said on Sky earlier India look a decent shout as if they bat first they get the better of the pitch, & then when the wickets starting to crumble theyve got 37 slow bowlers

I'm not sure theres any value in that 3/1 at all tbh Jackynwa, as it can only happen in certain circumstances.
For example, you can split the 4 groups into groups of 2, groups A & B where the big teams play each other last, & C & D where they play each other first.

We'll go with C & D first. The winner of West Indies v Pakistan & England v New Zealand are through as theyre just not going to lose to both minnows......one at a real push but never on this earth both. So the only realistic scenario of qualifying is to back the winner of the 2 minnows against the loser of the big guns, & Bet365 for one already have odds out on each teams first 2 games. So take Ireland as beating Zimbabwe whilst WIs beat Pakistan, so you'd back Ireland to beat Pakistan @ 10/1 (I already have ) So thats just one bet.
I'd expect Kenya to beat Canada so you'd back them to beat the loser of NZ v England & thats available @ 9/1, so straight away thats 2 bets.
The only other realistic one is Bangladesh as I just cant see Scotland or Holland beating Australia or SA as it would dwarf Bangladesh beating Australia in 2005 by about 100 to 1 in size. Bangladesh play Bermuda last & thats probably a walkover so you could back Bangladesh to beat India @ 13/2 & Sri Lanka @ 8/1 ( strange odds) Also the 2nd game might be irrelevant as Bangladesh play SL 2 days after India play Bermuda so it might be that both SL & India have immense run rates by that stage.
So by my reckoning thats a maximum of 4 bets with a shortest price of 13/2 meaning 1 winner dwarfs the 3/1 quoted. All youre covering on that is if a group comes down to run rate with 1 side winning 3 & the other 3 one each, which I find highly unlikely as the big guns run rates could be enormous by that stage.

[Swooperman]

Hold on, I could we be talking utter bollocks there I'm gonna have to read that again

Erm....you'll get bigger prices on Betfair which would mean you would dwarf your 3/1

[Swooperman]

To back myself up hurriedly you could also look at the 'Stage of Elimination' market on Stan James & take the prices of the big guns to go out in the group stages:

Aus, SA, Eng. NZ, WIs are all 25/1
Paks are 20/1
India & SL are 12/1, obviously because Bangladesh are seen as the biggest danger