World Cup Betting

The Cricket World Cup is the most important event in World cricket. Held every four years and staged in a different country each time, matches are played in the One-day format with a maximum of 50 overs per side. Australia have won the last two World Cups, in England in 1999 and then again in South Africa in 2003. In England they beat Pakistan in convincing fashion in the Final with leg-spinner Shane Warne picking up 5 wickets and in South Africa they relied on centuries from Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn to defeat India in the final.

The Cricket World Cup offers great opportunities for cricket betting . The reasons why betting on World Cup Cricket is so popular are related to its high-profile status. All matches in the last World Cup were broadcast live on Sky Sports through its interactive service and plenty of information was available regarding the players, their form and the state of the wickets where the matches were being played.

Numerous World Cup cricket betting markets were available on Betfair at the last World Cup. The outright winner’s market unsurprisingly saw a lot of trade though Australia were clear favorites from the start and at no stage did their price drift from the pre-tournament price. Other tournament cricket bets included top runscorer for the tournament, of which Indian supremo Sachin Tendulkar was the winner and top wicket-taker, who ended up being Chaminda Vaas of Sri Lanka.

There were numerous cricket World Cup betting markets available on Betfair on individual matches at the Group stages, Super Six Stage, Semi-final and Final. These included in-play match odds and innings runs, as well as the usual selection of top runscorer, top wicket-taker, best opening partnership and various head-to-heads. Other betting markets included the winner of each of the groups.

England started the tournament at odds of around 12, behind Australia, India, Pakistan and New Zealand and failed to make the Super Six stage as a result of not contesting their Group Stage match against Zimbabwe due to security concerns and losing against Australia from a very strong position. This match saw a lot of cricket betting activity on Betfair as it went to the wire with Australia eventually winning thanks to a superb knock by all-rounder Andy Bichel, who surprisingly came in at number 10.

The next Cricket World Cup will be staged in the West Indies in 2007 and should create record amounts of betting interest, with Australia guaranteed to start as favourites once again. This time however, odds on England should be a lot shorter in light of the progress Michael Vaughan’s One-Day team has made in recent times.

Here are the Cricket World Cup Winners throughout history:

1975 - West Indies (held in England)
1979 - West Indies (held in England)
1983 - India (held in England)
1987 - Australia (held in India)
1992 - Pakistan (held in Australia)
1996 - Sri Lanka (held in Pakistan)
1999 - Australia (held in England)
2003 - Australia (held in South Africa)

Bet on the Cricket World Cup

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