Twenty20 World Cup - Sunday 7th June

[fairfranco]

Two games today and according to the forecast we shouldn't have too many weather problems, hopefully we'll see 2 full games.

South Africa look like a mighty force at the moment and I'm expecting them to destoy Scotland who's bowling and fielding against New Zealand was very poor. Batting wise they produced a good display over the short 7 over slogathon though.

My Best bet for this game is: South Africa Most 6's @ 1.3 (Betfair).

Scotland's loose bowling will be punished by the South African's.


England v Pakistan

The big game of the day starts at 5:30 with England needing a win to give them a chance of going through to the next stage. They didn't produce the goods agaisnt Holland, fielding was very poor and the bowling didn't do the job. Only Luke Wright and Bopara really batted well and no one pushed on with the big shots to accelerate the innings at the end.

I think England will be a much improved side today after the major back lash from Friday and I'd like to hope there would be a major improvment in the simple things in the field and the urgency of the side.

Pakistan in their warm ups gave away a lot of runs but scored well which doesn't bode well for England who's problem has often been not scoring enough runs.

Afridi will be the major danger bowling wise to England who has consistantly picked up wickets and caused problems for batsman, no more so than in the Australian series where he ran through the Aussie line up.

I'll be trading this game in play and while I think England could come through the win here I'm not confident on it.

I was going to post a tip on Pakistan to score more 6's as I feel they have more 6 hitters though they only hit 2 in their 2 warm up games which has put me off that bet. That has alerted me to another bet though.

Total Match 6's - 9 and under @ 1.6 (Betfair).

England don't score many, none in their last game and I don't see them scoring a large amount today. If Pakistan fail to score many as they have in their last 2 games then this could be a decent bet.

[jaydubs]

Hope the 6's come in for you FF, there were 13 in the Aussie WI game and 8 in the NZ Scotland shortened game but as you say neither of these with exception of Afridi hit them regular like Gayle, Ryder, Taylor etc and with it raining all night and the pitch under cover there should be a bit of moisture and movement early on to halt a sides progress. Am not going with the 6's bet just yet as I want to see the tournament pan out a little.

Just a little stat for your bet on the under 220 runs FF As well as WI went and with Gayle and Fletcher on fire they would still have needed 48 runs off 4 overs to beat that bet and even when Gayle was out they were only just going at 11 an over.

Hopefully there is a little movement for Scotland to restrict SA to under that score today.

[fairfranco]

jaydubs unfortunately on my under 220 bet for some reason Betfair voided the market and restarted it on Friday. No idea why, but there wasn't much liquidity second time round and i've got pennies matched on it now.

Impressive win from South Africa, no suprse it at all but certainly stamping their authority.

---

PAKISTAN WIN THE TOSS AND FIELD FIRST

That toss pushes the price out on England and they are now evens the pair

[Andy4Fingers]

"unfortunately on my under 220 bet for some reason Betfair voided the market and restarted it on Friday. No idea why, but there wasn't much liquidity second time round and i've got pennies matched on it now."

Betfair are buggers for this, it was one of the reason I didn't want to sign up with them in the first place. I remember when they did it on the christmas number one market a few year ago. They had Gary Jules at 50/1 at the start of december, and it got backed in to much lower odds (around 2's if memory serves) then Betfair cancelled the market because they said it was actually Gary Jules featuring Michael Andrews. I'd had a bet on The Darkness that year (don't let the bells end - quality and should've won imo) with a bookmaker so it didn't affect me but it put me off betting with them for quite a while.

[mercer]

brilliant england great performance thats more like it,good batting performance could have got more runs but then again pakistan did field bad at times,but i was really impressed with the bowling cant fault anyone and thats the lineup we needed first game,pakistan didnt play well but cant take anything away from the boys,alfridi is not even half the player he was whats happened to the great man

happy days we are through so hopefully we can go on further and further but we are in the tough group now

there wont be any haters commenting now im sure
_________________
Mercers Blog http://www.olbg.com/blogs/mercer
Twitter - https://twitter.com/OneDannyMercer

[fairfranco]

Very good from England though Pakistan were poor. Pakistan in real danger of going out to Holland now needing to get a good result agaisnt the Dutch to make up their net run rate.

If they play with the same desire as they did against England against this laclustre Pakistan side I wouldn't put a win past them though of course a close game will do it for them.

[jaydubs]

Yeah very poor from Pakistan i thought Holland were the amatuers

Really poor in the field laughiing about misfields and dropt catches and then having no urgency in the run chase...

BEWARE

Just on a couple of games coming up.

Holland v Pakistan - If Pakistan bat first be careful on the amount of runs for Holland as they may well bat to a total to qualify and not to beat Pakistan. With all the teams on 1 win the run rate will be all important and Holland will know the figure they have to reach to beat Pakistan on run rate and qualify.

South Africa v New Zealand

These teams have both qualified and they already know which group of the 8's they are going in so be warned they may tinker around with their teams to give the squad a game.

There may be some more like that in the next day or two as well.

[jaydubs]