THE EDGE: The Edge previews the 3rd Test between ENGLAND v SRI LANKA with a recommended BETDAQ bet.
England v Sri Lanka 3rd Test
MATCH OVERVIEW:
We head into the final Test of the England summer on Betdaq Betting Exchange with plenty of dark clouds hanging over English cricket. Who would have thought everyone would be so negative given they’ve won every game so far? In fairness to England, hosting West Indies and Sri Lanka in a summer was always going to be a hard sell. However, in another major example of cricket shooting itself in the foot we saw England win the 2nd Test at Lord’s in front of mainly empty stands. Why the price of a ticket remained at £95 is quite surprising, and most of the UK cricket media went with that angle rather than another comfortable win for England.
Ticket prices are going to be a major issue going forward; common sense would suggest when England are hosting the “second tier” Test nations that the price comes down – obviously Lord’s doesn’t agree but that just meant not many people turned up. They voted with their feet. On the field, it was another quite one sided Test. Sri Lanka showed signs of creating some positive moments – they had England 82/3 on the opening morning but Joe Root scored another century and England never looked back. The reality is that there’s such a big gulf in class between the sides, you have to wonder how far below par do England have to be for Sri Lanka to be very competitive in English conditions.
We had this debate at the start of the season of course; it’s no surprise that Jimmy Anderson was asked to step aside and retire after the opening Test of the summer. West Indies and Sri Lanka were perfect opposition to blood a young bowling attack. It’s hard to see Sri Lanka being competitive again here; the weather forecast is the only thing to save them from the series whitewash.
WEATHER AND PITCH WATCH:
We move to the Oval to end the Test summer – but the weather forecast for London over the weekend isn’t great. At the moment, there’s a chance of rain Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. It’s definitely going to be a Test where we are watching the radar – I would suggest that we’ll be reasonably OK – I do expect some time lost but I still feel we’ll see enough play to get a result. The Oval has been a result venue recently – only one draw in the last 16 Tests going back to 2008. That one draw was the dramatic one in the Ashes in 2013 when Australia were pushing for a result and declared early too but we didn’t have Bazball back then!
RECOMMENDED BET:
It’s quite hard to judge things this far out with weather. Long-range forecasts are tricky and change quite easily – the best advice is to keep an eye on the radar on a day-to-day basis. For this reason, I’m going to keep stakes small for this Test pre-off. The draw is going to be a factor here, and that’s why it’s trading 6.2. I don’t see Sri Lanka winning, and the market has them trading 9.4 with England 1.35. For me, it’s a choice between England and the draw – at the moment in my opinion as I write this I feel we will get enough play in for a result, so I’m happy with a small position on England at 1.35. With rain around, this Test will be one to trade in-running rather than having a set position from the start.
The Edge Says:
One point win England to beat Sri Lanka at 1.35 with Betdaq Exchange
View the market here -> https://betdaq.biz/EngSri3
IN-RUNNING STRATEGY:
The in-running strategy is pretty straight-forward here; you want to watch the radar and trade based off that each day. My opinion is we get enough play in for England to win, but with rain forecast each of the first four days (at the moment) we could easily see the draw trade a lot shorter than 6.2 in-running. England have been much the better side, so once the radar is reasonably clear I would be happy to support them at bigger prices. You also have to consider that rain forecast usually means clouds, which makes batting very tough either side of the rain – and we know Sri Lanka have really struggled with the bat this series too.
