THE EDGE: Our cricket tipster The Edge previews Thursday’s 2nd semi-final in the T20 World Cup between India v England with a recommended BETDAQ bet.
Semi-Final 2: India v England
MATCH OVERVIEW:
While New Zealand v Pakistan is a thrilling Semi-Final, India v England is a blockbuster. It’s fair to say we have the two best teams in the world competing here and it’s bound to be an absolute cracker. Both sides have so many match winners, it’s probably going to be a very up-and-down market on BETDAQ Betting Exchange as the sides do battle. Both sides have already had setbacks in the tournament, with India losing to South Africa and England losing to Ireland. The rain did have an impact on the Ireland loss, but England simply weren’t good enough. While India have Virat Kohli to thank for his wonderful innings that saw them home in their opening game – the tournament could have went so differently for India bat that amazing final over.
A lot of cricket fans will feel that the winner of this game will win the tournament, but both sides have their flaws. England’s bowling attack is definitely their weak point – and now they face a top class batting unit with all the experience of the IPL and the power hitting that brings. That’s not to say that England don’t have their own batting talent – their batting order is probably the most attacking in world cricket. They know they have the firepower to keep going even if losing early wickets too. On balance, given the talent of both sides there really isn’t much between them – as I said above they both have a huge amount of match winners.
Where the game will be won or lost is in the bowling. That’s where both sides have their weak point, and you’d probably edge towards India having the better bowling. They are missing Jasprit Bumrah who would have been the first name on the team sheet which does open the door for England but I still feel the jury is out on the England bowling. You’d also have to say they had an easier route here – they would have been expected to beat Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, got rained off against Australia so it’s a case of can the England bowling repeat the performance against New Zealand? A fascinating match awaits, surely the cricketing world is stopping to watch this one!
WEATHER AND PITCH WATCH:
We’re back at the Adelaide Oval and although we haven’t had great crowds at times during this World Cup, surely this will be a sell out! The weather forecast looks good at the moment, and if we have any issues we do have a reserve day too which is nice. Despite that, keep an eye on the radar! Obviously we have had a gap with Covid19 here, but generally in the past we have had two types of wickets in the Big Bash here. One is a spinning track and the other is very good for scoring runs. You’ll be able to tell quite quickly which it is, but I do feel it’s a little early in the Australian season to be seeing the spinning wicket here. Batting first has been an edge here in the past – what I would say about the games here is that there hasn’t been a real 50/50 game it’s all been heavy favourites. The first inning scores have been 117 all out (chased), 184/6 (won), 185/6 (won), 168/8 (won), 158/4 (won) and 127/8 (chased).
RECOMMENDED BET:
This is going to be a very close game, I think it’s hard to see otherwise! There isn’t much between the sides in the market, but India come into the game marginal favourites at 1.91. I really see this being a 50/50 game for so many reasons, and I’m happy to have a small bet on England from a value point of view at around 2.08. One, the toss will be big – I can see batting first offering a decent edge and two, we have so many talented batsmen on either side it really only takes one wonderful innings to turn the game on its head. I am worried about the England bowling of course, but it will help if they are defending a score here, and on balance I just see this has a 50/50 game and I’m happy to take the marginal value on England as the underdogs.
The Edge Says:
One point win England to beat India at 2.08 with Betdaq Exchange.
View the market here -> https://betdaq.biz/IndEng
IN-RUNNING STRATEGY:
Both sides have excellent batting line-ups, so while the conditions at Adelaide haven’t been massively high scoring we should see a decent score up towards 180. I’d have more confidence in the batting than the bowling on both sides, so I’d be looking for trades on both batting sides and wouldn’t stay on the bowling side for long. It has looked an edge to bat first here, so we could see some movement in the market there – I would stay out of the market for the first few overs and then look to build a position after the opening three overs – I will change that view if England bat first however because their openers have been in superb form so I’d be happy to support them from the start. We’re going to see a lot of flip-flops here in my opinion so I wouldn’t hold a position for long!
