Article: West Indies v Australia 5th ODI .... Yet more frustrating value
In my article for the last game, I described Windies as being frustrating value. Well, they took that frustration, and value to new levels in that game as they somehow managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Needing twelve to win from seventeen balls, with five wickets in hand and trading at 1.01 on the exchanges, they somehow contrived to lose by one run!
They now find themselves 4-0 down in this series, but in three of those games they have got into winning positions, only to throw them away each time. Frustrating indeed for them, their fans and for their backers.
But hopefully some of those backers will, yet again, have traded themselves some profit in all those games as Windies have traded at close to or under evens each time from an opening prices of up to 4.1.
This final game of the series also takes place at Warner Park, St Kitts.
We now know that this is a batsmen's dream of a pitch, with small boundaries and a very fast outfield. The average first innings score on here is 284 and once again I expect a high scoring affair.
The prices on the exchanges:
Windies 3.75
Australia 1.36
I don't want to sound boring, but once again I have to repeat what I have said throughout this series, the Aussie represents no value at all pre-match.
In almost all the games they have traded at or close to odds against in running and I think it could be the same story again.
Windies, conversely, have seen their pre-match prices invariably halve and they have gone on to be massively odds-on on a couple of occasions. I think it could be the same story again.
Australia will again be without Ricky Ponting, and with the series comfortably in the bag, they may even be tempted to rest another big name or two for this dead rubber. They posted 282 on this pitch in last game, but they now know that even that may not be enough on this pitch and will be looking to score a lot more this time if they bat first.
West Indies , though obviously disappointed at their capitulation from such a strong position in last game, will at the same time be confident of also scoring big on this pitch.
Sarwan, Gayle and Chanderpaul all looked comfortable against the Aussie attack and once again I think they can dominate it. Xavier Marshall and Dwayne Bravo did not last long in last game, but they hang around this time I feel the Windies are more then capable of again making a good fist of winning this game and I feel this price on them is too big to miss, even if it's only for trading purposes.
In short, from a betting prospective, I think this game will go the same way as the others with Aussies trading a lot lot higher then their pre-match price, and the Windies trading a lot lot lot lower then their pre-match price.
This will be another close game, the only question is, can the Windies finally go the extra mile and finish the job off, or will Australia again pull it out of the fire.
There is only a certain amount of frustration a man should be expected to suffer, I believe this time there will not be any frustration, I feel this time Windies could finish the job off and therefore my recommended bet is:
BACK Windies for 3 points @ 3.75 on Betfair
Bigjoe.


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