World Cup Betting / Ed Hawkins / 09 February 2011 /

Ed Hawkins reveals the secret formula for finding a winning top bowler bet in the World Cup. Follow him on Twitter here

Finding a winner of a World Cup top wicket-taker market can be a fraught business. Do I pick a fast man? A swing bowler? A spinner? And what of these bowlers who pick up wickets purely because of batsman error?

The best advice is not to look at a particular style of bowler. Instead focus on the type. Specifically one who will bowl at the start and end of an innings. Then you are likely to get all the ingredients listed above (apart from the spinner who can also bowl swing, of course). And that means wickets.

Let's take a look at bowlers who have dominated in this tournament before. Glenn McGrath was the top man in the 2007 edition as he picked up wickets with the new ball and the old. In 2003 it was Brett Lee. Again, new ball and old. Lee was particularly lethal at the death of an innings when he claimed wickets with balls which really had no right to get batsmen out.

There were other bowlers of similar type who appeared in the top five wicket-takers in each of those tournaments. In 2007, Shaun Tait was third with 23 wickets and Lasith Malinga fifth with 18. In 2003 Chaminda Vaas was second, McGrath third and Shane Bond fourth.

As for spinners, only two have made it into the top five (or top ten over the two events): Muttiah Muralitharan and Brad Hogg in 2007.

It is of course tempting to reckon that spinners will dominate in Asia because they are suited to the wickets. But we would rather stick with the formula. Besides, there is not as strong a trend for spinners dominating in Asia as one would expect.

For a start, of the top seven 'foreign' bowlers in terms of strike rate in the last five years in Asia, only one is a twirler - Graeme Swann of England. The rest are your archetypal new ball-death man. Sure, there will be plenty of takers of Muralitharan at [19.50] or Harbhajan Singh at [15.50] but they are not for us.

Our top rated bets are Australia's Mitchell Johnson at around the [30.00] mark and India's Ashish Nehra at around [35.00] to [40.00].

Johnson is unreliable in terms of accuracy but that is not of a huge concern when batsmen are under pressure. It is his pace which will get him wickets. With 65 wickets in the last two years Johnson has taken more ODI wickets than anyone else. He also boasts the second-best strike rate of a foreign bowler in Asia at 26.3. Shane Watson, his teammate, is top with 25.

Nehra has a big role to play for India after the withdrawal of Praveen Kumar to injury. It ensures Nehra will get time at the end of an innings. His stats back up to. He is the third highest wicket-taker in the last two years in all ODIs and is third on the list for most wickets in Asia in the last two.

Malinga, at [16.00] is probably priced correctly, as are India's Zaheer Khan at [17.00] and South Africa's Dale Steyn at [15.00]. A weary James Anderson, who has been alarmingly ineffectual in India on previous visits, is bad value at [25.00].

Stuart Broad, who is second on the list of wicket-takers in the last two years, is worthy of a few pennies at around the [40.00] mark, although we worry about how far England will get in the tournament.

Best bets: Mitchell Johnson top bowler at around [30.00], Ashish nehra top bowler at [35.00]-[40.00]

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