THE EDGE: The Edge previews the 1st ODI between WEST INDIES v ENGLAND with a recommended BETDAQ bet.
MATCH OVERVIEW:
England begin their rebuild after a disastrous ODI World Cup campaign on Sunday as their white ball tour of the West Indies gets underway on BETDAQ Betting Exchange. After such a poor World Cup, there wasn’t actually much fall out. Rob Key, managing director of the ECB, came out in full support of Jos Buttler as captain in the days after the World Cup and the coach Matthew Mott has stayed in place too. They will be fully expected to win this series – West Indies weren’t even good enough to reach the World Cup – and anything other than a straightforward England win will be a pretty big shock.
England played like a team at the World Cup that had problems in the dressing room, but it’s obvious from the fallout that wasn’t the case. If the players weren’t happy with the coach, he would be gone. To be honest, how could you not back Jos Buttler as captain too? He’s England’s best white ball player. We have a reasonably strong squad, but of course this will be viewed as a chance for England to see some of the newer players too. With no Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow or Moeen Ali Buttler has lost a lot of experience in his side.
From a West Indies point of view; well there’s always some drama! Shane Dowrich their wicketkeeper announced his retirement from Internationals after getting picked for the squad for this series. West Indies continue to try and rebuild their squad as they go through a very difficult period. Their stars have got the franchise route, and the talent they have left is pretty limited. Anything other than a series win for England would be a huge talking point.
WEATHER AND PITCH WATCH:
We start the series at North Sound. Wickets in the West Indies have been quite low and slow for a number of years now; I wouldn’t go into this series expecting big scores – you very much have to judge each wicket as it comes in the West Indies. North Sound has a long history of International cricket; it’s one of the main grounds in the West Indies. We’ve only had three ODI’s here since 2017 however with a break for Covid19 etc – that was a series against Sri Lanka in 2021. The first inning scores were; 232 all out (chased), 273/8 (chased) and 274/6 (chased).
RECOMMENDED BET:
England come into this game as the heavy odds on favourites at 1.33, but it’s really hard to see past them here. I know they played really poor cricket at the ODI World Cup, but there’s a lot of fresh faces coming into the side here and I fancy they will be razor sharp for this series given the World Cup disaster. You have to ask yourself too; how many levels do England have to be below their usual to give this West Indies side a chance? As I said above, they didn’t even make the ODI World Cup and they have a very limited squad at the moment.
The Edge Says:
One point win England to beat West Indies at 1.33 with Betdaq Exchange
View the market here -> https://betdaq.biz/WesEng
IN-RUNNING STRATEGY:
It’s difficult to form a confident in-running strategy here as we’ve had so little ODI cricket here in recent years. Even the Sri Lanka series in 2021, that would have been a reasonably low level series between two sides going through a transitional period. It paid to bowl first then, and I would probably give the side who bowls first an edge here without fully knowing what conditions to expect. As I said above, conditions in the West Indies in general lately have been very low and slow – difficult to bat and it could pay to not place too many trades on either batting side.
