Blog

Wow! What a day yesterday. As I expected the NZ-SL game was extremely close and although I picked SL to win in our Sport Guru league I certainly didn't have the confidence to put money on it. My man Scott Styris justified my faith in him with a wicket (20 pts) and 17 runs (17pts) to give him a match total of 37, enough to beat his line of 30.5. My anti-Dilshan stance looked good with 3 off 19 and I'd look to keep going under on his run totals for the rest of the tournament until he finds form but despite that I wasn't able to identify Jayawardene as the star of the show.

For the WI game the Irish looked desparately outclassed although the 17 year old George Dockrell did give them a spin option that worked. I should have stuck to my guns on the under for Pollard as he didn't even get a bowl and bloody Chanderpaul threw away his wicket with a lazy shot when his over 26.5 runs was well within his grasp.

So onto today's fixtures. I can't see the Afghans beating India but there is no value there with India 1.03 (cricketbetlive.com). I like Suresh Raina to be the top Indian batsman at 5.00 on bet365.com. He had a very strong IPL and he will bat up the order giving him a chance to score runs even if India are chasing a low total.

For East Pakistan vs West Pakistan the result is a more interesting question. Everyone loves the talent Pakistan has and people have been burnt before betting against them just because they are in a total mess so the media line is "don't bet against them they always pull it off". I disagree here, Pakistan often start tournaments slowly (as they did in last year's T20 World Cup) and they are short on batting. Contrast that with an improving Bangaldesh side packed full of spin options and I think you are getting good value at 4.30 on Betfair. For player bets Kamran Akmal's line of over 39.5 points from cricketbetlive initially seems high (remember 20pts a wicket, 10/catch, 25/stumping, 1/run) but when you see that he has averaged over 37 points in his international T20 career it looks more interesting. He will bat up the order and if he gets a stumping (and he's managed at least one in 42% matches) you're almost there.

That's my lot for today, think my favourite bet of the lot there is Bangladesh over Pakistan just for the value. I'm doing AFG-IND live at 2.30pm today so tune in.