Sri Lanka v England 1st ODI Prediction

Guys calm down. I'm going to impart some more wisdom of Cricket betting.

There are two man strategies to follow in a Cricket series and it work with local bookies or online bookmakers.

The first one is backing the favourite and second one is backing the underdog. Both have their own pros and cons.

Cricket series are more or less predictable up to some extent. Home team is always the favourite unless a visitor is way above them such as SA visiting Zimbabwe or India visiting Bangladesh.

When home team is favourite and visitors are not in good form then who do you back? Home team or visitors? Obvious answer is to back home team. And this exactly what I explained on my blog post.

Even though both Sri Lanka and England have been humiliated by our blues Brothers, Sri Lankans are favourite thanks to them being the host.

England are not a 3rd tier team, they always have habit of nicking few matches in any series anywhere in the world. They might not have a strong team unit but they always carry few match winning players. It's their history. England were never a strong team unit but always relied on brilliance of few individuals.

Combing back to original question, who to back in the series. Let's do some math. Let's assume England will nick at least 2 matches in the series.

Let's say SL odds will be around 1.57 which is 0.57 profit per match. 5 match winnings will give us 2.75 profit and 2 losses will give us -2 and we will make 0.75 profit backing Sri Lanka in the series.

Let's see other side, England's odds are 2.37, 2 winnings will give us 4.74 and 5 losses will give us -5 which comes out to be a loss of 0.26.

So if you back underdogs England with 1.37 bhav per match then it might be losing strategy. You can make profit backing England only if England are expected to win 3 out of 7 ODI matches. Ask yourself this question, can England win 3 ODI matches in Sri Lanka when they were thrashed by India in their own backyard?

Answer is no. England are not likely to snatch 3 victories out of Sri Lanka.

This leaves us with only one strategy and that is backing favourite i.e. Sri Lanka. This is safer strategy.

There are punters who swear by their strategy for backing underdog but this strategy doesn't work in Cricket where one team is always clearly the favourite which happens in over 90% of Cricket matches.

Backing underdog can be more effective in Football but certainly not in Cricket.

There is another strategy - Doguna which I've explained on my blog http://munnabhai.net/online-betting-strategies/doguna-double-strategy-for-online-sports-betting.html

In this strategy you pic a team whose odds are always going to be over 2.0. Keep backing that team by doubling your stake after every loss and as soon as this team wins you make profit. Take that profit and disappear. Don't continue betting again in the same series. There is huge risk in this strategy, if underdogs don't win then you will end up with huge loss and there is no way to recover such huge loss.

That is why I never recommend beginners to take this route. I always recommend low risk strategy.

There is another variant of backing Sri Lanka in this series. If you can ensure that you always back Sri Lanka at odds more than evens (2.0) then even if Sri Lanka wins only 4 matches you will be in profit.

So how to get Sri Lanka's odds of more than 2.0? Betfair my friends. I've been telling you all along. Get account there and start making profit.

I did some research on the past records at this ground and conclusion is, as usual, first innings score. A score of 300+ will be difficult to chase. SL chasing have more chances of winning the match than England. England can be fav only when they make 340+ score. They are not known for chasing down runs. England will fail to chase 280+.

SL is favourite to win. Follow series betting.