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Cricket Betting  
 
Despite not being one of the largest online betting markets, there is a profit to be made on cricket betting, even if you are not an expert on the game. The reason for this is that like baseball, cricket is a game dominated by statistics. This therefore gives the opportunity for bettors with limited knowledge of cricket to have an instant and reliable source of statistics to help them make an informed bet.

Preferred formats
While many players perform across all formats - e.g. Stuart Broad, Chris Gayle, Joe Root - most tend to reserve their best cricket for ideal conditions and format. It is perfectly possible to be the world's best in one format while poor in others.

Only the very best can perform well in all conditions. For example, most batsmen from the Indian sub-continent have failed to make the same impact when touring England, Australia and South Africa. The reason is that they learn the game and play mostly on Indian pitches, which tend to be slow, with much lower bounce than encountered in those other countries. Equally for the same reason, English players have rarely produced their very best on sub-continent pitches.

Read a Pitch
Pitch conditions are pivotal and reading them is one of the keys to successful betting. Arguably, the pace of the pitch, how much help it offers to bowlers and how quickly it deteriorates will have as great an impact on the outcome of a match or an innings total as the players themselves.

You should always have an opinion on whether the pitch will favour batsmen or bowlers and which type; how it will be playing later in the day or in Test matches, tomorrow; what the run-rate will be in both the short-term and over the course of the innings and match. This subject is a constant matter of discussion amongst commentators whose expertise is invaluable while you learn the art, and a useful extra opinion once you've got the hang of it.

The Weather
The overhead conditions not only determine whether there is to be play or not, but the nature of the match. If there's plenty of cloud cover, swing bowlers will enjoy a marked advantage and batting totals are likely to be substantially lower than average. If the sun is out, those faster bowlers will receive much less assistance, transferring the advantage to the batsman. However constant sunshine will bake and break up the pitch, favouring spinners later in the game.

An extreme example is Headingley, a ground famous for favouring swing bowling, but that has also seen many scores over 500 in good weather. During the 2009 Ashes series, Australia bowled England out in bowler-friendly overcast conditions on the first day for just 102, before making 445 on the same pitch once the sun came out. This despite England being clearly the better side over the course of the series.

When bad weather causes the number of overs to be reduced in one-day matches, a complex formula known as the Duckworth Lewis method is used to reset batting totals. This can have a huge impact on the match winner market and requires mastering.

Take big prices
Markets and odds get carried away with stats quite often in cricket. For example in Tests, the draw often trades extremely short before the pitch suddenly deteriorates and teams often fail to chase down supposedly easy targets in all formats.

Also the runs total markets regularly see massive upsets. A fairly frequent scenario involves a team losing its last five wickets for less than 50 runs. Alternatively, teams quite regularly hit 70+ runs off the last five overs in T20. In both scenarios, some very short-priced bets will have lost and big prices can win more then they should.

Ground sensitivety
Check out past results at the ground in question, using a tool like Stats Guru on www.espncricinfo.com.

Home advantage, follow the form
Whereas limited overs matches tend to be closely matched, there are many one-sided Test matches as seen in the Ashes 2015. Often analysis of the teams, weather and ground stats, will point in one clear direction. When it does, don't be afraid to take short odds as there are many rock-solid favourites in Test cricket

India. For a stretch from the beginning of 2009, they won 10 out of 15 home Tests, losing only once. Away from home, they only won four from 20 and lost their last eight to England and Australia. Yet in those two away series, because India are roughly of the same standard in general terms, neither home side was very low priced before landing comprehensive victories.

South Africa. At a time when they were constantly challenging for world number one status, the Proteas lost all four Tests played in Durban between 2009 and 2011. Despite the bad omens, the visitors started the last two matches as big outsiders, on the basis of wider form at different grounds.

Lay the draw
While being careful not to get caught out by the weather, trading the draw price in-running offers a chance to utilise all that stats and pitch analysis.

Most pitches deteriorate sharply as the pitch gets older, making life tough for batsmen as bounce becomes uneven and cracks aid the spinners. It is perfectly normal for a pitch to yield 400+ runs in the first innings but less than 150 in the fourth. Over the first three days when the pitch is favouring batsmen, the draw price invariably collapses, based on a false assumption that conditions won't change. When they do, wickets tend to tumble in quick batches, dramatically transforming the match and markets. Matches often produce results despite the draw trading heavily odds-on.

This isn't, however, a plan to follow blindly. Always maintain a good idea of how many overs remain in the match and whether there will be time for the changes to take effect. Study past innings totals at the ground to identify the scoring trends.

Partnerships milestones
Just as the draw price can over-react to good batting, so too can innings runs markets. If two batsmen establish a decent partnership, their team's run line will rise with more or less each run. Partnerships can't last forever though and were to some extent already priced in at the initial quote. When a wicket falls, more often follow as new batsmen struggle to settle. The potential for a batting collapse and dramatic betting turnaround is always live and many odds-on bets are turned over this way. As a rule, it might pay to blindly back unders every time a partnership hits a milestone like 100 or 150.

40 and 50 Over Matches
Although 50 over matches are famous for nailbiting close finishes and volatile betting, there are many one-sided matches. Sometimes a particularly advantageous toss stacks the odds in one direction. Sometimes the team batting first is bowled out and fails to set a meaningful target.

Until a substantial part of the first innings has been completed and the pitch been assessed, there is great uncertainty about what represents a good total. It makes good sense, therefore, to spend the first part of the match focused on the innings runs markets, fine-tuning that pitch analysis and forming strong opinions for the second innings run chase.

Some grounds have small boundaries, offering the potential for very fast scoring during power plays and the end of the innings, but are hard to accumulate runs on during the middle of innings. A recent example came at St Kitts, during the West Indies v New Zealand series. Scoring was moderate in the three first innings played there, averaging around five runs per over. Yet despite limited tail-enders batting during the last five overs, the average rose to nine per over as the short boundaries were regularly cleared.

40 and 50 Over Matches
Back extremes, especially on run lines. If it comes off, extremely high scores are possible, which will always be available at big prices. If it doesn't, wickets can tumble fast and a team fall well short of setting a challenging total. Consequently, backing very high or very low totals at big prices often pays.

T20 Matches
Pre-innings run lines in IPL tend to average around 160. Yet Bangalore, Delhi and Jaipur are all high scoring grounds and teams regularly hit 180+.


 
 
 
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