Cricket betting markets and strategies

Cricket is one of the few sports that generate equal interest in all eight states and territories in Australia, definitely making it an all-round national sport of Australia.  Played mostly internationally, more than 100 of the world’s countries are members of the International Cricket Council (ICC). Individuals who enjoy betting on Cricket, or who are considering it, will find that this guide offers a good review of the basics. Included is information regarding betting types, odds, the game’s major events and wagering strategies and tips.

From a five-day test match to 20 overs under the floodlights, the game of cricket has taken over Australia by a storm and punters are in love with this sport as it offers unique and diverse markets unlike rugby or soccer where you mostly find similar markets.

Cricket Match betting

When it comes to betting on the actual match, cricket punters are spoilt for choice. Naturally, betting on the result – home win, away win or draw – is the most popular but there are several exotics that attract significant turnover, particularly top batsman and top bowler. Match betting is a wager on the outcome of a match. Normally, bookies offer better odds on the underdog to encourage individuals to bet on both the teams and reward you respectively for a risk for betting for the underdog. A match bet for an ODI match may look like

  • Australia 2.40
  • Draw 3.70
  • India 2.65

In this case, the odds are pretty much the same as the odds for both the teams aren’t much apart suggesting no clear underdog in this match. It could be the case that either one of the teams could be missing a few important player which might chance the odds. Research on Head to head match report is vital in these games and information on the momentum of the players and the teams overall performance is to be considered before betting in these matches.

Cricket Series Scores

Series events are popular and common, mostly in international matches. Punters can bet on who will win a series of 5 ODI’s or 5 test matches between two countries. This market is similar to a match betting except that you predict who win majority of matches in the series rather than just one match.

Cricket Match scores

This is another market that punters commonly take their chances on. In this market, punters bet on the amount of runs a team will score in a match. This amount is mostly given in a range format typically suggesting a team will score between a certain ranges of runs. For a 50 over ODI match, match scores betting may look like:

  • Australia 2.8 (250-300 runs)
  • Australia 3.20 (300+ runs)
  • India 3.00 (250-300 runs)
  • India 3.40 (300+ runs)

In these markets, it is important to identify the strength and weaknesses of the team. If the batting order of the team is strong, it is more likely that the team will score over 300 runs. Similarly, if the bowling side of the team is strong, it is more likely that the opposition will not score more than 300 runs. Head to head record of runs between the two teams is also necessary to estimate a forecast of how the current match might turn out.

Cricket Top batsman

Basically, it is a market on the highest scoring batsman in a particular innings. Individuals who take this bet are betting on the top batsman, scoring the most runs in a series or in a match. In some limited-overs games, especially Twenty20 matches; it pays to concentrate on the batsmen at the top of the order because they may be the only ones who get a hit.

Typically, this market has a list of players from both sides and the odds are generally set according to the probability of a batsman being a top run scorer. If a player is known to score more runs than his team-mates, he generally has lower odds.

Cricket Top bowler

Although it may sound subjective, this market is popular and required you to identify the best bowler that is most probable to take the highest number of wickets in an inning or in a series. A maximum of 10 wickets fall into an innings so, usually, any bowler that takes four or more wickets has an excellent chance of being declared the market winner.

This market behaves similar to the tops batsman market where a bowler how is known for taking the most wickets will have the least odds. A list of players in both the teams have odds and you just choose who you feel will take the most number of wickets.

Exotic betting in Cricket

Since Cricket is a mega sport in Australia, any Aussie bookmakers offer exotic betting to make every bowl interesting. They may offer bets like Odd or Even run scores where individuals wager on if the score will be odd or even.

There are also many player stats bet where you can bet if there will be a player from either side scoring 50 or 100 runs for his team. Punters can choose which player is likely to score half a century or even a century. One of the most popular exotic bets in cricket is the ‘Man of the Match’ bet as this market offers very high odds. Punters are shown a list of players from both teams and you have to pick a player who you think is most likely to be named the man of the match at the end.