England v India First T20 Player Tips: Malan can be a marvel

England v India
Thursday 7 July, 18:00
TV: live on Sky Sports

Buttler versus Malan

Finding value on the top England bat lists has been hard this summer as on recent win rates the willowmen have been prohibitively short. But we are spilt for choice for game one.

Picking between Jos Buttler and Dawid Malan could be considered an unenviable task. But the worst feeling in punting is when you've wagered and ended up with a mug bet. That is unlikely to happen with these two.

Buttler is boosted to 11/4 by Sportsbook. It's a risk taking on one of the most destructive openers in the world. With seven wins in 22, Sportsbook are giving up an edge of 5.1% to backers on win rate versus implied probability.

It's not as a big a gap as Malan's, however. We expected around 4/1 for Malan. Or 9/2 at the very least. However, 5/1 is an eye-popping price for the man who has top scored more than any other Englishman in the last three years. Malan wins 29% of the time. Sportsbook reckon he wins 16.7% of the time. It's huge value even if you reckon Malan may bat at No 4.

There is more value on the top match runscorer market. Malan has seven wins in 36. Malan has a win rate in line with a 4s chance and he is priced at 10s. Buttler is 4/1 but should be bigger with 11 in 80. Bet the Sportsbook markets here.

Top bat wins/matches
Roy 6/26
Malan 9/31
Buttler 7/22
Bairstow 4/33
Moeen 4/24
Livingstone 2/15
Vince 2/9
Banton 2/14
Jordan 1/36
Billings 0/11
Rashid 0/36

Top bowler wins/matches
Jordan 5 3t/34
Rashid 5 8t/33
Mahmood 1 t/11
Moeen 1/22
Mills t/6
T=ties

Sharma the main man

Rohit Sharma has also been boosted to 11/4 by Sportsbook. It's not big enough with 23.5% win rate versus 26.7% implied probability.

Interestingly, Rohit is joint-top in T20 international history with most top match bat wins with 20 from 117 innings. Virat Kohli matches him in 89 innings.

Kohli may well be the man to follow once he is available from the second T20 given that win rate. As for Rohit's top match bat price, Sportsbook go 11/2. That is a 1.6% edge in our favour.

There are two other batters of note: Suryakumar Yadav and Deepak Hooda. Yadav is one of the classiest hitters you're ever likely to see and he is underrated here.

Yadav gives us an edge at 10/3 on win rate, although we're aware that a chunk of those wins have come from the No 3 position. He may not bat there as Hooda could get that role.

Hooda doesn't have a big enough study sample to consider on how often he wins but this is a pure 'batting order' bet. We think he'll bat higher than a price of 9/2 suggests.

With the ball, Harshal Patel has returned seven times in 14 outings and we're pretty confident cheap wickets will be available for him at the death. He is 10/3 with Sportsbook of which you can bet here.

Top India bat wins/matches
KL 3/14
Dhawan 2/7
Kohli 5 t/15
Shreyas 4/19
Sky 4/16
Jadeja 1/9
Rohit 4/17
Pant t/20
Ish 2/17
Gaikwad 1/9
Karthik 1/7
Hooda 2/5

Top bowler wins/matches
Chahal 6t/18
Kumar 2 6t/23
Harshal 3 4/14
T=ties

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