20/1 against

The twenty-bloody-20 starts tomorrow. We in Ayalac try not to care. We are, however, obsessed with cricket. It is a difficult battle.

So, in a possibly meaningless warm-up game, South Africa defeated Australia. Mainly by bowling “swing" but also with an impressive batting performance by Graeme Smith. What does mean for the tournament? Nothing much really.

You see, it is all a part of the randomness that constitutes the format. Skill and knowledge aren’t really applicable, so there is no point in getting too excited about it. Those who are gamblers may fancy a few “out-side” bets, as bookers are sure to offer over-generous odds for unfancied side.

A quick scan on betfred.com revealed the Aussies to be firm favourites at 2/1. Which is frankly ludicrous. Whereas South Africa (4/1) and Sri Lanka (7/1) may offer reasonable rewards – even England (8/1) offer a good value bet. (Hence, a little £10 stake on his home country by The Atheist.)

However, where I think you may clean up is in the one-to-one bets. For instance, you can pick up Kenya beating Australia at 9/1, which is much more likely an occurrence than you would think.

Similar odds are offered in this tournament than in the World Cup, but this is an error by the bookies. Remember, the key rule to betting on twenty20 is bare in mind that odd-generation does not take into account the inherent stochastic nature of the format. That is to say, the outcome is as good as evens before the match begins. With this in mind, better value odds are evident and enables the keen punter to make a tidy profit.

(Ayalac does not encourage reckless gambling. Spending money costs lives.)