Ashes Test Cricket : Game 3 Betting Review
The Ashes is alive after England Wins Game 3 as it brings the Series Scoreline to 2-1. While Australia are still in front the momentum has shifted and the contest on the field between the teams remains very close. There is still a lot to happen in this series with 2 games left to play and that means there should still be some good betting action to be realized. Thus for me its all good as despite being an Australian I’m happy to see England win one and keep things interesting. Game 4 kicks off in 8 days so there is a short rest period here for the players and no doubt a bunch of selection decisions to deliberate – but particularly for Australia. As is often the case, it is the losing side which needs to make the biggest changes and this will be no different.
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I’m happy with the calls that I made for this game and the match played out pretty close to the way I had expected. I did miss a couple of opportunities as I had erred on the side of caution later in the game, but I ended up in front with my betting so that makes up for the loss of last game. All up the match saw 37 wickets fall and only 3 of those (8.1%) were to Spinners so my expectation that the game would be Dominated by Seam and Pace with the Spinners taking a back seat was pretty spot on. It was particularly notable that during the 4th Innings chase on Day 4 the new Australian Spinner Todd Murphy only bowled 2 overs out of 50 (only 4%!). This is pretty much unheard of for Australia and would never have been the case if Nathan Lyon was playing. This may well have been the difference in the match, but the side-lining of the new spinner suggests that the Australian Captain Cummins doesn’t have a lot of confidence in the new spinner keeping things economical when bowling under pressure. This could be VERY telling for the rest of the series and I've noted that Australia may have just shifted from being Late Game Specials to Late Game Donkeys.
Another big call I got right was that I predicted No innings would hit 300 and they rolled out 263, 237, 224 and 254 (for 7 wickets). I scored a win backing Unders for the 2nd Innings but backed off in the 3rd Innings after some sound advice from @talesfrmthecrypt regarding recent results at the ground and the pitch still looked pretty good to me when Australia went in for the 3rd Innings. The pitch did not crack up or significantly deteriorate as the match progressed and I think the 3rd Innings is where Australia really lost the game. They should have set a higher chase on that pitch. They did set 251 runs for victory after I’d earlier predicted 250 would have been about par, however that total just wasn’t enough because the pitch was still in pretty good shape leading into Day 4.
I would have backed England to chase down that final total if it was a bit bigger but before play on Day 4 the price on England to Win had shortened right down to about 1.36 which was just too short. There was no value at that price so I went NO BET again. I'm happy with that decision because there were a couple of wobbles in the English chase that would have given short-odds-backers serious heart palpitations, but England did eventually get there with just 3 wickets in hand.
Bring on the next Test! I’m expecting the last 2 games to be played on nice spicy green wickets as England will be keen to push for results in the hope of saving the series and they have time to prepare the remaining pitches to order. As such my early notes for Game 4 have the Draw totally discounted if the weather forecast is reasonable.
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Its very interesting to see that when peoples of other countries support your team due to your team hard work. Like you have supported England team despite of Australia.
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I thought Todd Murphy looked a bit rattled by the whole occasion. Obviously playing against India is a big series but crowd and atmosphere wise it's nothing like an Ashes Test.
I think the Aussie's really lost the game on that second evening when they quite literally failed to make hay while the sun shone. 116/4 off 47 overs in their 2nd innings at the close of play. They didn't really look like they had a plan for getting a winning score on the board. I don't think they had to be as gung-ho as England are with the bat but against a tired bowling attack who were a man short you'd expect to be able to score at least 50 more runs. When they did attempt to up the scoring it lead to the very soft dismissals of both Smith and Labuschagne.
Psychologically, England hold the edge but lets see how they bare up physically. I'm not convinced that Wood can play 3 Tests in a row and he was a major factor in that win. Ollie Robinson must be a doubt for at least the next game and then you've got Ben Stokes who is trying to drag himself through this series.
I've no doubt that Hazlewood will come back in for the next Test, Boland was very poor. Australia have a big call to make on Warner while England face similar questions over Bairstow. Then you've got the issue of who bats 3 for England for the remainder of the series. It's certainly going to be a fascinating last 2 matches!
All good points. Wood plays the next test for sure and then it's one game at a time so we'll see how he pulls up. Stokes is not sitting out any time soon - he'll play on one leg if he needs to. I agree that Boland has been disappointing and Hazelwood comes back in for him. Starc has come good so I think the Australian pace bowling rotation still looks in good shape and Neser is in the wings too. I don't know what to do with Murphy though. If England serves up a green top next game (which I expect) it wouldn't surprise me if both teams just abandon the spinners and go with an all-pace bowling attack.
Sure is shaping up nicely as a series to go down in folklore. I'm tipping a 3-2 final score line but it could literally be a coin toss either way.
I really hope so! I think I might have mentioned I have tickets for the 5th Test (Saturday and Sunday). It'll be a great occasion anyway but if there's something riding on it then it could be epic!
Playing no spinner at Old Trafford would be a risk. Weirdly South Africa played 2 frontline spinners in the match last year and ended up losing by an innings. The pitches in Manchester tend to favour spinners who bowl a little quicker and get bounce as much as spin. Back in the day, Monty Panesar used to take wickets galore on this pitch. From what I've seen so far this year, Old Trafford has been flat. My team (Surrey) left themselves the final day to bowl out Lancashire and managed just 3 wickets. They didn't pick a spinner.
Great insight into the local conditions again, thanks! Sounds like Australia might really miss Lyon in the next one.
Seems to me like you are going to be there when history is made. My gut feeling at the moment is that England tie the series in this next Test and then the 5th goes down to the wire. It'd be a fairytale finish but I've long believed that fairytales in sport happen more than they should.
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I'm glad to hear that you were able to make some good bets on the third Ashes test match. It sounds like you were pretty spot on with your predictions, and I'm sure that was satisfying.
I am expecting rain to play a role somewhere forcing a draw in one of the last 2 matches. You cannot play 5 weeks of cricket in England without having a problem somewhere along the line. The problem is the teams are only batting for just on a day and losing 1 day may not always mean a drawn result. Australia need to knuckle down as they are the better team as England are relying on one player to keep puling them through.
I would agree that I'd normally expect at least 1 game out of 5 in a series to get washed out in England, but I keep hearing about how England is having this hot dry Summer so who knows if it might be different this year.
I also agree that Australia has the edge, but England keeps winning the toss and is consistently getting the better of conditions so they are definitely in with a good chance to upset Australia in the last 2 games. Especially without the G.O.A.T. Lyon Australia is not at their best and are definitely vulnerable.
😊😉 I hope they're some NICE SPICY GREEN wickets!
Three test matches are very interesting the way we have seen the England team perform very well and every player has worked very hard to make this team what it is and what it is. There is much joy in the country at this time. Win or lose is what happens to a person, that's what happens to a person. A person can only work hard and then get success the way this team got it.