West Indies v England Third ODI Betting: England bring brawn to dumbed down Bridgetown

England Cricket / Ed Hawkins / 26 March 2009 / Leave a Comment

The one-day tussle between West Indies and England continues in Bridgetown on Friday with precious little to separate the two teams after the first two matches, writes Ed Hawkins.

It is a game apiece after West Indies leveled affairs in Guyana and at [1.96] on the series market they are marginal favourites ahead of Andrew Strauss' side, who are [2.08].

Throughout the tour it has been difficult to work out which side has the edge and it is perhaps telling that it has been brains, or lack of them, rather than brawn that has decided contests.

From Strauss' reluctance to declare in the Test series to John Dyson's Duckworth-Lewis blunder , this has not been a series which the players' old school teachers will have looked watched with pride.

At Kensington Oval, however not much brain power will be required. In one-day cricket at least this wicket is for the dumbed down unlike the challenging turgid track in Guyana. It is quite simple in Barbados: see ball, hit ball - very far. The match odds less so. Transpose the series prices and you have the market. One wonders whether Dyson has been logging on and getting his numbers muddled again.

It should be a belter to bat on, a blessing after Providence tested the patience of the strokemakers and rewarded those who could best nudge and nurdle into the gaps.

This time, batsmen like Chris Gayle and Kevin Pietersen should be able to strut to the crease, free their arms and hit through the line of the ball with confidence.

Gayle and Pietersen are part of a long line of their brethren who have been queuing up to bat on this surface. Flat and true, the ball comes onto the willow beautifully.

Cast your mind back to the 2007 World Cup final. Adam Gilchrist, with a little bit of help from a squash ball, hit 149 off 104 balls in one of the finest displays of clean hitting. In reply, Sri Lanka didn't waste much time either.

There had been a clue to the wicket's easy going nature when West Indies and England met on the ground earlier in the tournament. It was a cracker, with England winning by one wicket with a ball to spare after chasing down 301. Have a look at the scorecard here http://content.cricinfo.com/statsguru/engine/match/247504.html

You will spot that it was Gayle and Pietersen to the fore, top scoring respectively with 79 off 58 balls and 100 off 91.

With such a good batting wicket in prospect, we must not forget that opening batsmen will get the most time to score the most runs. In contrast to Guyana, where openers struggled to top score, Nos 1-2 in Barbados thrive with five taking honours in the last 10 innings. Gayle is [5.20] while Ravi Bopara at [5.70] is a decent alternative to KP at [4.50].

Indeed, the difference between Barbados and Guyana cannot be stressed enough. For the first two matches it was a case of win the toss and win the game as the bias in favour of the team batting first increased to five wins out of seven. In Bridgetown, things are much fairer with a 50-50 split over the last eight matches.

England welcome back Andrew Flintoff following a hip injury. He could replace Steve Harmison, the cockroach of international cricket in that just when one reckons his career is dead, he wriggles back to life. Flintoff should bolster England and it's surely a statistical quirk that with the big man in games since 2000 they have won just 37% but without him they succeed 47% of the time.