West Indies v England Test Series ..... Windies Worth It

Starts Wednesday Sabina Park, 15.00 GMT
Sky Sports 1

Weather

As the snow blizzards hit the UK, England's cricketers are soaking up the Caribbean sun and getting ready for the start of this series on Wednesday.

It's not only the snow and freezing conditions that the players will be glad to leave behind them, but also a torrid period off the pitch which has seen Kevin Pietersen resign and the coach Peter Moores relieved of his duties.

It appears that the relationship between the former captain and coach was not all sweetness and light and that there were serious differences of opinions about the way forward. In the end both paid the penalty for the issue becoming public knowledge and a new era for England is about to start under the new captain Andrew Strauss.

England’s recent results in all formats have left a lot to be desired. There was a lot of optimism after KP took over and especially after he led England to a 4-0 ODI series win against South Africa. But instead of building on that promising start, England have lost their way.

 First signs of trouble manifested themselves in the wake of a terrible performance in the much hyped Stanford Twenty20 winner take all game. Next came a tough tour to India where they were totally outplayed and were trailing 5-0 in the ODI series before the suspension of the action due to the Mumbai atrocities.

England won a lot of friends and kudos for deciding to defy the terrorists and resuming that tour, albeit to again be outplayed and losing the Test Series too.

It was in the aftermath of that series loss and the selection of the squad for this West Indies tour that brought the KP/Moores issue to the fore with the ensuing outcome.

So what now for England?

Will Strauss and the new temporary coach Andy Flower bring instant success, or will it be another false dawn?

This series in the West Indies will go a long way to revealing the answer. A convincing series win will set England up nicely for the return series in England prior to the all important Ashes battle later this year. Anything other then a series win however will be seen as a failure and England could be back to square one.

On the face of it, England should beat the Windies comfortably based on recent meetings which has seen England win 3-0 in both home and away series. The market believes England will win comfortably and make them around 1.67 to win the series.

Well, surprise surprise, I find myself again strongly disagreeing with the market!

If this series was in England I would make them short odds on favourites. But this is not at home this is away. England’s away form in tests has been dire in last couple of years.

Since they beat India at Mumbai in March 2006, England have won just two tests, both against New Zealand on seamer friendly tracks. They failed to win a test on tours to Australia, India and Sri Lanka.

The pitches in this series against the Windies will be more akin to the sub continent then the ones in New Zealand. Apart from the first game at Sabina Park, the other venues will see slow low tracks and once again I believe England’s bowlers will struggle to force a win.

The events in the last month off the field will not help either and I feel there is no value whatever in backing England for this series.

The West Indies away form has also been nothing to write home about. In fact its worse then England’s with just one Test match victory since 2002. But that sole win away to South Africa demonstrated their potential.

But on home soil recently, even though they lost to both Australia and India, they had periods of play where they more then matched their opponents and only the infamous Caribbean collapses prevented them from winning a test. They did however hold a strong Sri Lankan side to a 1-1 drawn series and I believe a repeat of their performance in that series will see them deny England a win in this one.

The batting seems the strength for both sides. England have Pietersen, Strauss, Cook in good form, and the interesting issue will be whether Ian Bell retains his place ahead of Owais Shah who hit an impressive ton in the warm up game.

West Indies have their skipper, Chris Gayle in top form at the moment and he along with Chanderpaul and Sarwan will be the main threats to England. But they also have potentially destructive batsmen in Xavier Marshall and Devon Smith.

As ever, it’s the bowling that invariably wins tests. Though England have the slight edge in the spin department with Monty Panesar, I believe the experience on home pitches of Windies pacers  Jerome Taylor, Darren Powell and Fidel Edwards gives them the edge.

Overall I am expecting the bat to dominate the bowl in this series and there will probably be one or maybe two high scoring bore draws and a drawn series cannot be ruled out. However, both these teams have demonstrated an inability to show the patience and discipline to play out too many draws and so a result is quite likely.

So what will that result be and, more importantly, what’s the bet?

For me, Windies are worth backing, England are worth laying in the series outright market. I am confident that Windies will at least draw this series and if there is a series winner, I believe it’s more likely to be them.

They are outsiders to win and as a result there are some very tempting prices in the series correct score market and I will be getting involved there too so my suggested bets for this series are:

In the Series Outright Market:

LAY England for 5 points liability @ 1.67 at Betfair and Betdaq

In the Series Correct Score Market:

BACK West Indies to win 1-0 for 1 point @ 34.0 at 888sport , Bluesq
BACK West Indies to win 2-0 for 1 point @ 26.0 at 888sport, Bluesq , Totesport
BACK West Indies to win 3-0 for 0.5 point @ 34.0 Totesport, Sportingbet , Bluesq , 888sport
BACK West Indies to win 4-0 for 0.5 point @ 101.0 Totesport, Sportingbet , Bluesq , 888sport
BACK West Indies to win 2-1 for 1 point @ 11.0 at Totesport
BACK 1-1 Drawn series for 1 point @ 8.0 at Skybet, Bet365

Test Series England vs West Indies 2009 Odds (Cricket, West Indies) Highest (average) odds and probabilities listed for selected bets
Winner	England 1.62  @   West Indies 4.75  @

Join me and hopefully the Windies will make it worth our while.

Bigjoe