Bookies Blog

England’s domestic twenty20 tournament starts today and Lalit Modi has upped the ante with a £2.5 million prize to the winner of the Champions League in September. The big money now luring the players into this recently formed branch of cricket could put unwanted pressure on the game. Again those loyal to Test cricket raise their complaints about T20’s risk to the future of cricket. However, demand for T20 is growing, even England’s domestic tournament has inexorably doubled its venues.

Former champions Kent are up against Sussex today. It already looks pretty decisive given that Sussex have lost one of their top run scorers, Luke Wright, and Mushtaq Ahmed is out for the whole tournament due to injuries. To cope they’ve signed Dwayne Smith, a West Indies all rounder known to be inconsistent in form (a possible promise of brilliance). William Hill and Betfred both have Kent at 4/6 for this match.

Racing Post’s Ed Hawkins feels Leicestershire are the best side to put up for the champions league, Totesport has them up at 16/1 to win the tournament. It’s reasonable to say they have a good chance against Lancashire today but the northern teams are a cut above the rest and in this competition conditions are liable to turn around at the drop of a hat.

We have now seen the first weekend of the IPL and if the games continue to be as exciting as the first five have been then it looks as if the tournament is here to stay. So far we have watched a whopping 1386 runs and 57 wickets in just 188 overs. You could easily fit 188 overs into two days of test cricket and end up watching about a fifth of the runs already scored in the IPL. It doesn’t take much convincing to realise that test cricket and to an even greater extent one day cricket may well have had their moment and that this recent evolution of cricket may well leave them in the history books.

However, what is really important about the IPL is getting a bet on and winning some money. With matches being played everyday for the next month, I’m not sure its going to be too difficult finding a bit of action. The quick pace of Twenty20 is going to create some frantic in match betting and if you don’t have the speediest of live feeds at your fingertips you may well find yourself in trouble as just a single ball at Twenty20 can really turn a game either way.

The odds have certainly been mixed up a bit since last Friday and Kolkata are now 7/2 favourites to win the tournament after two convincing wins. Deccan Chargers have been pushed out to 11/2 with skybet after their late defeat to the Knight Riders but remain 7/2 favourites in a very liquid betfair market so those of you who enjoy arbing events may want to get involved in this one. Jaipur, who were originally the 12/1 outsiders for the title are now out to 16/1 after losing by nine wickets to the Delhi Daredevils.

The Chennai Superkings have also been shortened up to 4/1 after beating the Kings XI by 33 runs on Saturday. The Deccan Chargers are seen as favourites over the Delhi Daredevils in Tuesday’s game and so if they get a result then you can expect them to shorten up a bit in the title odds.

Why not check out all the IPL markets here.