England’s fast and furious tour of the West Indies continues as the sides meet in what will be the third of five One Day International matches, set to take place at the National Cricket Stadium on Monday afternoon. Will St George’s be the perfect setting for this battered and bruised England team to roar back following a few hurtful defeats recently? Here are our West Indies v England 3rd ODI Betting Tips.
Fans back home can follow the 3rd ODI match live on Sky Sports with the coin toss expected to take place around 1.30pm GMT. The start time will ensure a healthy support amongst followers of English cricket but if what we have witnessed on this tour so far can be trusted, it promises to be another tense afternoon.
Evenly Balanced After a Strong Start
We head into the third round of this battle with the scores tied at 1-1. England got off to a strong start, winning the opening One Day International by six wickets. The final scoreboard read England 364-4 (48.4) against West Indies 360-8 (50.0). A high-scoring match and one that gripped the attention of fans from the start.
West Indies went first and racked up a simply stunning display of batting, one they were sure would be enough to put England to the sword. Punters betting in-play found the locals as red-hot favourites on the back of that as the tourists had never overcome a deficit as large as that in ODI cricket. The odds-markers were proven wrong as England stepped up to the plate to set a record and write their names into the history books.
It went down as an impressive team performance but there was no denying the standout performers of the day, namely Jason Roy, who scored an incredible 123 runs off 85 balls, and teammate Joe Root, who helped himself to a haul of 102 from 97. Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler had enough about them to guide their team across the line. As well as the win the day also saw Root become only the fourth England player to reach 5000 ODI runs and that is testament to the kind of form he is in.
Not to be Denied, Hosts Battle Back
West Indies had every right to be left slightly shell-shocked by the ferocity of their opponent’s attack, but they had two options ahead of them heading into the second ODI. They could let the beating get them down or they could recognise how well they played in defeat, knowing the performance would’ve been good enough to beat most teams on the circuit, and aim for more of the same on Friday. They opted for the latter, battling back in style to level the series at 1-1.
Windies won the second One Day International by 26 runs, the scores marked on the card at West Indies 289-6 (50.0) against 263 all out (47.4) for England. A slightly less dramatic day in terms of the numbers put up, but there was no lack of excitement as the host nation proved their class to remain competitive.
Chris Gayle scored no less than 135 runs in the first ODI and cut a determined figure in the second as he looked to get the victory his performance deserved. The opener smacked four sixes on-route to scoring 50 before being ousted. A disappointment for the great Windies player, but he took heart in the fact he played his part in a win.
Strong Start
Shimron Hetmyer put in a man of the match showing and credited his celebration to his girlfriend who he told members of the press at the end inspires him to do good things. We’re sure she’ll be in attendance more often, at the request of coaches. Captain Jason Holder told fans his boys played fantastically well in putting up a great total and defending it.
He believed a strong start put them in the driving seat and the belief that came with it was enough to drive them towards the desired result. If that taught punters anything it was the home team will be keen to explode out of the traps again on Monday and ruffle English feathers.
All to Play For
There’s all to play for in the 3RD ODI and we believe the winner of this series will come from the winner of this match, although there is still plenty of cricket to be played and the fact the scores are locked at 1-1 ensures the interest will remain into the latter stages. So, when looking to back the winner of Monday’s match, do we go with a steady and consistent West Indies with the benefit of home advantage, or a fiery English side who have proven they are good enough to play their best cricket when in the mood, putting big numbers on the board? It’s a tricky one.
We were hoping the pre-match betting would shed some light on which way to play our stake money here, and it certainly has. We’ll take this ODI as a 50/50 – what we’ve seen so far tells us there’s not a lot between the sides when playing to the best of their abilities. Keep that in mind. We’ll then tell you Coral bookmakers have England marked as 4/11 favourites against the 9/4 of West Indies.
Bigger than Expected
We don’t know about you, but we expected the odds to be much closer and that makes a bet on the home win very easy to have. Windies are overpriced, plain and simple, and we’d rather back them at a delicious 9/4, sit back and enjoy what’s sure to be another cracker.
Prefer to avoid picking sides in a tricky match? Shoot for England’s top run-scorer? Jason Roy was superb in the 1st ODI and England will want him to be back at it again here. Backers can have him at 3/1 to score more runs than his teammates. A decent call, but we’d prefer the 3/1 of Joe Root.