THE EDGE: Our cricket tipster The Edge previews Saturday’s 2nd T20 between ENGLAND v INDIA with a recommended BETDAQ bet.

MATCH OVERVIEW:

It’s T20 cricket, and India announced themselves on Thursday night. They smashed England to all parts and won by a massive 50 runs. England might be the talking side in Test cricket at the moment, and clearly took all the headlines chasing down that massive score against India in the Test match but make no mistake, India have such a wealth of talent in T20 cricket with the success of the Indian Premier League. Let’s not forget too that India were without some of their star players on Thursday who return for this game, and the odds have changed dramatically on Betdaq Betting Exchange.

I felt the 1st T20 was England’s big chance to take a series lead, but they were very poor with the ball and their key batters failed too. You could probably argue that England have never been amazing with the ball in limited overs cricket – it has been their batting talent that has won most of the games to be fair. However, when Jos Buttler and Liam Livingstone but get out for 0 and then Jason Roy only gets 4 – England will always be in trouble. Chasing down 198/8 those early wickets killed off the game really. There’s a lot of improvement from England in that sense, and it will be interesting to see what kind of side India name too.

India really have a wealth of talent at the moment in T20 cricket – it’s actually unbelievable the firepower they have and it’s all down to the IPL. All the talk coming into this game is can Virat Kohli deliver? Apparently he has this tour to start scoring runs otherwise he is getting dropped. The BCCI are definitely getting tough with Kohli ever since the he-said-they-said situation with the captaincy – it’s a fascinating situation. The reality is he hasn’t been scoring enough runs to stay in this exciting side, but he’s such a massive talent surely they can’t drop him!? Another fascinating game awaits!

WEATHER AND PITCH WATCH:

The sides move back to Edgbaston and this will likely feel like more of a home game for India on Saturday afternoon such is the support for India. Both sides will know conditions well here, and I would expect a high scoring game. We have had some incredible innings in the T20 Blast here this season, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see 200+ scored here. At the Rose Bowl, India getting up to 198 was definitely a surprise based on ground data there, but you could see England finding it difficult and the winning margin was big. Here I wouldn’t rule out a chase of 200 – the pitch is very good for run scoring here and we should get an entertaining game with plenty of runs and sixes.

RECOMMENDED BET:

As I said above, the odds have dramatically changed. England went into the 1st T20 pretty clear favourites as India were without Kohli, Bumrah, Pant and Jadeja – they all return now so as you can imagine India are now favourites. Here’s an interesting angle though – are India a better side without them? Certainly Kohli is under immense pressure with the bat, and the younger generation are tending to bat quicker and without fear. You can’t argue however that Bumrah and Jadeja will make the bowling a lot stronger though. Although India are in a very good position, I am happy to have a small bet on England at 2.1 or bigger here. Their batters had a terrible start to the series and they can only get better – Roy, Buttler and Livingstone don’t fail for long and batting conditions will be very good here – England can overpower India with the bat this time around.

The Edge Says:
One point win England to beat India at 2.1 with Betdaq Exchange.

View the market here -> https://betdaq.biz/EngInd2

IN-RUNNING STRATEGY:

Plenty of interesting angles to this one! The main talking point will be how Virat Kohli bats, and I would lean against him. With India starting the game odds on, I’d be happy to open a trade against him – at the end of the day as I said above the younger generation bat quicker. These days T20 is all about scoring as fast as possible and using up all your wickets – batting deep is the name of the game so then you can keep attacking. I don’t see an angle as to batting or bowling first – I do expect good batting conditions though, so from that point of view we should see some good movement on the side who bats first because I am expecting a big score. This isn’t a game to stay on the bowling side for long!