Blog

I didn't catch the India - Sri Lanka match yesterday but I'm worried by the idea that Sri Lankans other than Jayawardene are starting to score runs. My favourite man to bag for the tournament, Dilshan, seems to be coming back and their lower order hitters really did the job. India continued the commedy of errors that their tournament has been by conceding a six off the last ball to lose the game. I listened to the last stages of the WI-Aus game and the guys on the Sofa were lamenting my wides bet until all of a sudden Jerome Taylor bowled 5 wides taking the match total to 10. Suddenly things got interesting but with so few runs left to get for Australia surely there was no chance to get the one more I needed. In comes Gayle with two required for Australia and a new batsman at the crease and he bowls a deliberate bouncer that's given as 5 WIDES. HOORAY. What a thrilling victory.

One of the interesting things that came out of looking at tournament wides is that despite India's generally indisciplined bowling and fielding displays they bowled the fewest wides in the whole tournament (6 at an average of 1.2/innings). West Indies were the worst averaging a whopping 10 wides per innings and giving people a 10 run head start and one and half extra overs per innings is always going to make things tough on yourself.

I think England should have enough to beat Sri Lanka on Thursday, especially with Pietersen back. I like England over 160.5 in the first innings as I don't think Lumb and Kieswetter will let Sri Lanka get away with opening with the likes of Perera, Welegedera and Matthews and holding back Malinga and Mendis. The average first innings score in St Lucia has been 168 if you exclude Afghanistan and West Indies capitulation yesterday.

The Paksitan - Australia game feels like a stay away to me. I certainly think Australia will win and win handsomely but Pakistan have previous with confounding predictions at this stage of a tournament. Despite that Haddin looks cheap at 29.5* at CricetBetLive, he has been batting up the order, looked decent against West Indies and should get a chance at some catches with the Aussie pace bowlers firing in the short stuff.

I'll try and review things tomorrow before the game but may just have time to tweet about it. Favourite so far is the Haddin bet. Good luck.

* 20 points per wicket, 1/run, 10/catch, 25/stumping

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