Twenty20 / Ed Hawkins / 29 October 2008 / 2 Comments

Saturday's match in Antigua may represent 22 men competing for a "load of cash" but Ed Hawkins expects a sticky wicket to make for a tighter contest than the markets suggest.

If money really is the root of all evil then when the Stanford Superstars meet England in Coolidge, Antigua on Saturday night to decide who walks off with $20m, we should expect things to get very nasty indeed. After all, it is Halloween.

Of course we are not suggesting that the players are going to start being wicked to one another, merely hinting that the prospect of 22 men competing for a "load of cash", as Kevin Pietersen put it, is slightly immoral for a sport which has its origin in purity and honour.

No matter. By all means watch the contest with a scowl on your face, curse that Allen Stanford is strutting around "like he owns the place" (alas, he does) and scoff at the incongruity that any West Indian cricketer, given the region's malaise in the world game, could be included in a team called 'Superstars'.

Or you could try wearing a smile. And the best way to do that could be by having a bet on a contest which could almost be as good value for the armchair bettor than it is for the players. It could be a much tighter contest than the Betfair match market suggests; the Superstars are [2.12] and England are [1.80].

Fair enough you may say given that England's batting looks far superior to the Superstars, who have only Chris Gayle to make the visiting bowlers look nervously at their wives in the stands, hoping that they haven't already spent the money. Yet the reason that the gulf between the sides in terms of ability may not be realised is because of the wicket. As they say in football, it's a "great leveller".

Slow and low, batsmen have looked like they are trying to scoop the ball out of treacle with a hockey stick. There have been just 26 sixes from the first eight innings as the slow bowlers, sweet and uncommonly good in this format historically, have been game breakers. And in Dave Mohammed and Sulieman Benn the Superstars have two slow left armers capable of putting England in a sticky situation. Have a look what Mohammed did for Trinidad and Tobago at this venue in the final of the Stanford 2020 in February here.
We should not be surprised. The Stanford Ground, which hosts all the matches for the domestic Twenty20 competition in the Caribbean, has always been this way. In the last tournament the average first innings score was 139 and in ten of the 15 games the side batting first won, a sure sign that batsmen get bogged down on the turgid surface.

In the four games so far the average first innings score is even less at 137 and three of the four matches have been won by the side batting first. And look at some of the totals in this series which have been defended; 146, 121 and 141. Post a total like that in England and a county is beaten for sure.

It means that the toss will be crucial and it could well pay siding with the team that decides to bat first. England could be forgiven for feeling uneasy if they have to chase - something they are yet to do in the series - a total of 135 plus with Mohammed and Benn such a threat.

On the other side of the coin, Pietersen and co will know that with Samit Patel and Graeme Swann, their two spinners, they can afford to bat sensibly first up safe in the knowledge that pitch will help them squeeze the home team.

The top runscorer market is not unaffected by the slow wicket, either. In Twenty20 it is common sense to get with an opening batsman because he has use of the powerplay overs and, obviously, has the potential to bat for longest. Often it is a profitable ploy but so far in this series not one opener has managed to top score in eight innings.

On that basis by all means rule out Superstar Gayle, who needs a quick pitch to ply his swashbuckling trade, and likewise Matt Prior and Ian Bell for England. Instead look for men with iron wrists capable of manoeuvring the ball into gaps. Shivnarine Chanderpaul, if picked, Owais Shah and Paul Collingwood perfectly fit the dollar bill.