Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew

The Road to Riches Weekend of 26th-27th August

Posted on 24 Aug 2023 11:47 in Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew

Coming up this weekend

  • Horse Racing, On the flat at Goodwood, Newmarket, Redcar, Windsor and York and over the jumps at Cartmel
  • Football, the Premier League fixtures include Newcastle United v Liverpool.
  • Cricket, the Hundred concludes, the Eliminator on Saturday and the final on Sunday.
  • Rugby Union, the final 2023 Rugby World Cup Warm up matches
  • Formula One, the Dutch Grand Prix
  • Tennis the US Open begins.
  • Golf the European Masters on the DP World Tour

2023 NFL Season

The package covering all 18 weeks of the regular season begins in early September and costs £99. An article describing what to expect from the package has been published, free to read here.  The season ante-post write up will be live on 28th August.


Free Tip

Rugby World Cup Warm Up New Zealand v South Africa 7.30pm Friday at Twickenham

A final warm up match ahead of the start of the Rugby World Cup on 9th December where these two teams are in the same half of the draw and potential Quarter final opponents.

New Zealand were in the relative doldrums a year ago, including a home series loss to Ireland and a defeat to Argentina but prospects have improved dramatically this year particularly up front where a new forwards coach has got the pack really humming. They were dominant during the recent rugby Championship and their success in that truncated tournament propelled them back to World Cup favouritism ahead of France.

South Africa lost 35-20 in Auckland over the summer, the game lost in the first 20 minutes when they went 17-0 down before achieving parity in the remainder of the game. Their traditional strength up front is a given but in the absence of first choice fly half Handre Pollard for the World cup their attacking approach may have to broaden as they don’t have another game controller/kicker like him.

As it is, pending this match, South Africa go into the World Cup having not beaten a top four ranked side in more than 12 months though these are usually gritty narrow losses including 19-16 in Ireland and 30-26 in France. If they are peaking for the major tournament at the end of this four-year cycle, they are leaving it late.

Supporters will say that South Africa won the 2019 World Cup even though New Zealand were pre-tournament favourites and England were widely tipped to win the final.

What some people often forget, though, is that they had beaten the All Blacks in New Zealand prior to that World Cup, had won the 2019 Rugby Championship a couple of months before the tournament in Japan and had also beaten England in a three-Test series staged in 2018.

All that said South Africa have picked a strong line up here, and all the noises are that this is being treated as a major one-off test match and thoughts of the World Cup only begin after the match.

New Zealand are just five point favourites to win the match, which would seem a skinny spread given they have picked a powerful team pretty close to first choice and their recent supremacy over the same opponents in the Rugby Championship. They have to be supported on such terms given everything we’ve seen from the two sides recently.

11 points New Zealand -5 points at 10/11 generally

 

The Rugby World Cup Betting Emporium package is available now costing £50. The first write-up, including all the outright, pool and player markets will be available on Tuesday 29th August and will be available to subscribers here.

Previous Rugby World Cup Results 2015 +112 points ROI 28% 2019 +122 points ROI 47%

 


The Jury is Out

This weekend sees the conclusion of the 2023 Hundred competition, the third edition of the event. Once against this year the women’s Hundred has been a big success providing game by game exposure including on terrestrial television and following on from an exciting multi-format Ashes earlier in the summer.

The men’s tournament has had better games than last year where the top few sides were way ahead of the rest of the tournament. Despite mixed weather, good pitches have ensured some high scoring games including a score over 200. Ticket sales have been very good. Average attendance for men’s matches is at over 80% of capacity.

The men’s tournament has been hit with the withdrawal of big-name players, for whom the proliferation of global franchise leagues is lucrative but comes at a cost of increased injuries. It does not feature any of Australia’s Ashes players who mostly did not even enter the draft. There are no Indian players and there are no signs that the Board of Control for Cricket in India is going to let them participate. The situation is likely to get worse rather than better in the future, with other leagues offering much bigger value deals than the £125,000 top contract in the Hundred. The new American Major League Cricket competition is set to expand and clash with the Hundred directly, and is offering contracts of a much higher value thanks to backing from the IPL and private investment.

The tournament is not making any significant profit and the knock-on effect is that the ECB will not be able to hike the value of the player contracts and will not be able to compete with richer leagues. The 100-ball format has not been picked up anywhere else in the world meaning that the value of the intellectual property is limited and unless the ECB decides to sell off either the competition or the teams to private investors, it is hard to see how it will have the financial clout to compete with other franchises around the world.

The impact of the Hundred on the rest of domestic cricket remains large. Taking up the whole of August the Ashes were squeezed into the six weeks previous and the 300 men’s professional players without a Hundred contract have been playing in a  50 over competition that for many of the counties who have lost up to 12 players to the Hundred is relegated to development status. The ten counties that do not have a Hundred team at their ground feel marginalised and cannot access to the revenue that the eight host grounds command and they argue it is increasing the gap between the wealthier counties and the rest.

The future remains in doubt. Upcoming discussions in the autumn about the domestic schedule are mooted to include options such as ending both the T20 Blast and the Hundred and replacing them with a T20 competition which involves all of the 18 counties, although probably not playing under county names.

There is no doubt that the Hundred is bringing in new audiences to the game but it is unclear yet if those who come to the tournament as their first experience of cricket then go on to fall in love with the game. There remains outright hostility from many established cricket fans, particularly County Members and those with an affinity to existing teams.

The Jury is still very much out.


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Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated on 1st July 2023. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £67,126 All bets have an ROI +3.05%

A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £71,176 a 1678% increase 

 

 

 

 

The Road to Riches Weekend of 19th-20th August

Posted on 17 Aug 2023 08:47 in Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew

Coming up this weekend

  • Horse Racing, On the flat at Ascot, Ayr, Haydock, Lingfield, Newmarket and Redcar
  • Football, the Premier League fixtures include Manchester City v Newcastle United
  • Cricket, the Hundred continues.
  • Rugby Union, 2023 Rugby World Cup Warm up matches
  • Tennis US Open Qualification.
  • Golf the Tour Championship on the USPGA and the Czech Masters on the DP World Tour

York Ebor Festival

We have just added the York Ebor Festival - Full Package (23rd - 26th August 2023) to our homepage, the cost for all of Neil Channing’s write-ups is £125 here 


2023 NFL Season

The package covering all 18 weeks of the regular season begins in early September and costs £99. An article describing what to expect from the package has been published, free to read here  The season ante-post write up will be live on 28th August.


Rugby World Cup

The 2023 Rugby World Cup in France begins in September. The package will cost just £50 and is available here  The tournament write-up including all available markets will be available on 29th August.


Free Tip

The Hundred: Southern Brave v Oval Invincibles 6pm, Southampton

We are now well into the second half of the group stages of the Hundred, with a reminder that the  group winner goes straight through to the Lords final, whilst second and third place finishers play in an eliminator match for the right to meet them.

The Oval Invincibles are currently top of the table, with four wins and a tie from their six matches.  Here they play the Southern Brave with 7 points including 3 wins from their six matches and currently in second place in the table.

The squad looks to have all bases covered and unlike the first two Hundreds is delivering on their strength on paper. The top order contains big hitting batsmen in Jacks, Roy and Klaasan. Sam Curran in the primary all-rounder whilst the bowling ranks contain the pace of Australian Spencer Johnson and England hopeful Gus Atkinson supported by the leg spin of Zampa (who has replaced Narine for the second half of the tournament with Narine off to the CPL) and Sowter.

The side suffered a blow last Sunday when they lost the (at the time) top scoring batsman Jordan Cox, with three fifties in the tournament so far, to a broken finger and both Tom Curran and Atkinson have missed games with minor injuries.

Tuesday’s team in their high scoring win against the London Spirit was as follows

Jacks

Roy

Klaasen

S Curran

Billings

Muyeye

Whiteley

Zampa

Chappell

S Johnson

Sowter

Expecting Atkinson and Tom Curran to return for this game in Southampton.

There is often an opportunity in the top batsman market, with fewer realistic options in a short 100 ball innings to top score bar a top order collapse.

The Jacks and Roy opening combination is somewhat “boom or bust”. Jacks is the second top scorer in the competition as I write with 169 runs in 6 innings, Roy has 107 in 6.

The top scorer in the competition is now Heinrich Klaasen with 171 runs now promoted to three in the absence of Cox. A really powerful striker he has a strike rate of 180 in the competition and has hit 17 sixes. With one of the openers often out early (many of the opening batsmen in the competition are proving vulnerable to exaggerated swing in the early powerplay overs) Klaasen is a decent prospect in the Oval Invincibles Top batsman market

10 points Heinrich Klaasen top Oval Invincibles scorer at 11/4 with Bet365, more firms to follow before Saturday

 


Adapting

Recently a number of NFL running backs held a Zoom meeting to consider options to address their difficulties in securing acceptable non-rookie contracts. After that meeting Cleveland Browns star Nick Chubb admitted to reporters, “Right now, there’s really nothing we can do.” It’s a problem years in the making, intensifying because running back injuries keep increasing and longevity of elite play at the position keeps shrinking in a game that gets faster and more violent every year.

Teams avoid committing too much to players who don’t age well but these teams are helped by the rookie wage scale which puts severe restrictions on the earning potential of running backs when they are healthiest, only to deny the best of them top-of-the-market money in their second contracts after they  outperformed their initial deals.

There is a general belief in the NFL era of a high volume of passing and franchise Quarterbacks that the running back has lost value and that is most obvious among the big bruising “bell-cow” runners who will carry the ball 300 times a season of which there are fewer in the league each year, in part because fewer teams are willing to play a brand of football amenable to their style and in part because the college game is producing fewer “Derrick Henry”’s. However the importance of the run game is already in partial recovery as offenses adjust to defenses that have tailored their personnel to play better in space, creating the blossoming era of the so-called running back-wide receiver hybrid.

Lines have blurred at many positions already: outside linebacker and safety; wide receiver and tight end; defensive end and tackle; defensive end and linebacker. There are attempts to erase the mark dividing running back and wide receiver for example a Deebo Samuel here, a Christian McCaffrey there.

Interestingly, after the San Francisco 49ers traded for McCaffrey last season and put him with Samuel and all their versatile talent, they turned into a machine that a 262nd draft pick quarterback Brock Purdy could lead deep into the play-offs.

In the 2023 NFL draft running backs Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs were drafted high, Robinson drafted eight to the Atlanta Falcons. The Detroit Lions drafted Gibbs at twelve. Whereas a player like Derrick Henry is a Hummer,  Robinson and Gibbs are convertibles. Robinson has the ability to play slot receiver. The Falcons are experimenting with using him at multiple positions., The Lions plan to line Gibbs up at receiver too.

There’s a chance that Robinson and Gibbs could catch passes down the field and line up anywhere on any given play. As the sport changes, with more sophisticated passing games and players who are taught to be versatile at early ages, perhaps they will signal the next phase of running back versatility.

When asked once what position he plays, Deebo Samuel said “wide back” meaning “a wide receiver playing running back.” And he had a contentious contract dispute a year ago but the system eventually rewarded him with a three-year extension worth more than $71m.

Maybe there’s really nothing the running back can do. However in the face of the economics of the sport, athletes are already adapting.

 


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Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated on 1st July 2023. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £67,126 All bets have an ROI +3.05%

A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £71,176 a 1678% increase 

 

 

 

The Road to Riches Weekend of 12th-13th August

Posted on 11 Aug 2023 08:56 in Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew

Coming up this weekend

  • Horse Racing, On the flat at Ascot, Ayr, Haydock, Lingfield, Newmarket and Redcar
  • Football, the start of the Premier League season including Chelsea v Liverpool
  • Cricket, the Hundred continues.
  • Rugby Union, 2023 Rugby World Cup Warm up matches
  • Tennis ATP Winston-Salem Open.
  • Golf the BMW Championship on the USPGA and the ISPS Handa World Invitational on the DP World Tour

York Ebor Festival

We have just added the York Ebor Festival - Full Package (23rd - 26th August 2023) to our homepage, the cost for all of Neil Channing’s write-ups is £125 here


2023 NFL Season

The package covering all 18 weeks of the regular season begins in early September and costs £99. An article describing what to expect from the package has been published, free to read here  and a full ante-post preview will be available before the end of the month


Rugby World Cup

The 2023 Rugby World Cup in France begins in September. The package will cost just £50 and is available here with the tournament preview due to be live before the end of August


Free Tip

The Hundred: Welsh Fire v Southern Brave 6pm Saturday, Cardiff

The Welsh Fire were the worst performing of the Hundred franchises in the first two years of the competition, finishing 7th in 2021 and 8th  and last in 2022 losing all their games. This off-season they appointed a new coaching team led by Mike Hussey and adopted a new approach to squad construction with data led analysis of players aimed at providing value for money in the player auction process designed to make the new franchise competitive. The early signs of this change in process are encouraging.

So far this season they beat the Manchester Originals in game one, narrowly lost to the Southern Brave in game 2 with a sensational Chris Jordan innings proving a match-winner for the side based in Southampton, tied at the Oval Invincibles in game 3 before beating Birmingham Phoenix comfortably on Thursday night to go level on points at the top of the table.

The most dramatic transformation within the side has come in the bowling line up, with two key new recruits the Pakistani pair left armer Shaheen Afridi, who takes opening powerplay overs and a set at the death, and Haris Rauf. They are supported short form “value” signings from domestic cricket David Willey, David Payne and Ben Green.

Shaheen Afridi is one of the best fast bowlers in world cricket, and in the short format captained Lahore Qalanders to PSL titles in 2022 and 2023. Extremely tall and quick, he has a brilliant swinging white ball yorker that has taken early wickets in each of Welsh Fire’s first three games of this competition. At the time of writing he is the joint top wicket taker in the competition with 6 in 4 matches and has only conceded 88 runs in 70 balls too

This is his (and Rauf’s) penultimate game in the competition before returning to action for the Pakistan national team. As yet, there has been no sign of any opposition batting line up facing him confidently.

10 points Shaheen Afridi Top Welsh fire bowler at 13/5 with Bet365, more firms to follow before Saturday evening

 


Blast Off

The T20 Blast and the Hundred could be disbanded and replaced with one short-form competition under proposals due to be discussed between the ECB and the counties this autumn.

There are growing concerns that the domestic schedule, which has two short-form competitions, does not work and that the Hundred will not be able to compete with other T20 franchise leagues particularly with the advent of Major League Cricket in America, which is due to expand next year and is played mid-summer thus clashing with both the Blast and the Hundred while offering more valuable contracts.

One proposal is to scrap the eight Hundred teams and the 100-ball format and replace it with a T20 league featuring the 18 counties but with a different ownership model. The eight Hundred teams are wholly owned by the ECB but a future model could include shared ownership between the ECB, the counties and private investors which would allow the counties to partner with a local business or another local sports team to raise capital investment and allow for increased salaries and therefore compete with other world franchise leagues for talent.

The Hundred has already started to feel the impact of the increase in T20 franchise leagues around the world, with many global stars either withdrawing from the competition or not entering themselves in the first place because they can receive bigger contracts in other tournaments. The top salary for men in the Hundred is £125,000, which is eclipsed by the amounts on offer not only in the Indian Premier League but also Major League Cricket, the ILT20 in the UAE and the SA20 in South Africa.

The Hundred’s present broadcast deal does not end until 2028, so any changes before then will need to get the agreement of all the counties and ensure a replacement broadcast deal.


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Stattobets write ups, analysis and bets are available to monthly subscribers.

Results = points bet 34780 profit +1506.90 ROI +4.33% Full details here

Monthly subs are £50 a month and can be cancelled at any time. You can sign up here


Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated on 1st July 2023. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £67,126 All bets have an ROI +3.05%

A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £71,176 a 1678% increase 

 

 

 

The Road to Riches Weekend of 5th-6th August

Posted on 4 Aug 2023 11:50 in Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew

Coming up this weekend

  • Horse Racing, On the flat at Ascot, Newcastle, Newmarket, Salisbury, Windsor and York
  • Football, the start of the Football League season
  • Cricket, the Hundred continues.
  • Rugby Union, 2023 Rugby World Cup Warm up matches
  • Tennis ATP National Bank Open.
  • Golf the Fedex St Jude Championship on the USPGA.

2023 NFL Season

The package covering all 18 weeks of the regular season begins in early September and costs £99. An article describing what to expect from the package has been published, free to read here


2023 Rugby World Cup

The 2023 Rugby World Cup in France begins in September. The package will cost just £50 and is available here 


Free Tip

Cricket The Hundred Birmingham Phoenix v Trent Rockets Saturday 6pm

The Hundred started this week and concludes on the 27th August with a final at Lords. Trent Rockets are the holders having won six of the 8 games on the way to the final last year. In a very short and new format where strategies are very much still in development what the Rockets had that other sides didn’t consistently have last year was a gun top order. Dawid Malan top scored across the league with 377 runs, while Alex Hales (259) and Colin Munro (206) chipped in too. Munro is back as one of the Rockets’ overseas picks, Hales returns and Joe Root will pitch in later on in the competition. Until then, one of the top uncapped English batsmen Sam Hain has joined the side. Lewis Gregory is a very shrewd captain and has already led Somerset to the T20 Blast title this season. The Hundred is designed for big hitters and the Rockets have the best top three in the competition.

Trent began the season 4/1 favourites to repeat their win of last year and best the Southern Brave on Tuesday night to get off to a winning start in a low-ish scoring game in which Hain top scored.

Birmingham Phoenix's chances in the competition could be dependent on the availability of England's Ashes representatives Chris Woakes, Moeen Ali and Ben Duckett although Will Smeed, Benny Howell, Liam Livingstone and Dan Mousley are talented young players capable of stepping up. The side has a lack of late order power but a canny looking bowling line up, and just missed out on the knockout stages last year finishing fourth having made the final in the first season.

Birmingham began their campaign on Thursday against the Northern Superchargers, the match was called off midway due to more rain in this non-summer of ours.

Looking at the Trent top order in the Trent Rockets top batsman market we have prevailing prices of: Hales and Malan 3/1 Kohler-Cadmore 15/4 Munro 9/2 Hain 11/2. The Trent Rockets top three should fire sooner rather than later, with a slight preference for the tournament specialist Malan

10 points Dawid Malan top Trent Rockets run scorer at 3/1 Bet365, more firms to follow


Summer Break

As F1 heads to its summer break with nearly a month until the next race the season is particularly one sided. Red Bull has 503 points in the Constructors Championship, Mercedes next with 247  Merc 247. Max Verstappen has won 8 races in a row, and ten overall this season and Red Bull have won 13 races in a row eclipsing the previous best set by McLaren during the Senna/Prost era 35 years ago. Lewis Hamilton meanwhile has not won for 34 races, since the latest regulation changes at the start of the 2022 season.

Recently Toto Wolff stated that the Red Bull is so dominant that it makes the rest of the field look like Formula Two cars.

Formula 1 is in a tough spot. They timed up the hype of Netflix's F1 show perfectly with a super- competitive season in 2021. Since then Red Bull has been winning every race by 20 seconds plus & many new fans in the US are already losing interest. The sport needs to be competitive to keep growing.

It’s important to note though that F1 has always been this way. McLaren (Senna/Prost), Ferrari (Schumacher), Mercedes and Red Bull, etc, have all dominated at one point usually by securing design and engineering advantages after regulation changes, even Jenson Button and Braun did so for the 2009 season when they were well clear of the field. At least with Mercedes from 2014-21 there were two cars going for the title with Hamilton and Rosberg.

With regulation changes F1 teams take risks on their concept & it comes down to who picked the right one. This time Red Bull got it spectacularly right and Mercedes had it right last time but missed on this one & trying to play catch-up.

Replace Red Bull with the dominant force of the time and the issue has always been the same. This time round, F1’s new owners were aware of the impending problem and tried and failed to implement new rules and limit spending to level the playing field. Such was the design advantage of the Red Bull that this did not matter and the next regulation change and the introduction of new teams such as Audi and Porsche is not due until 2026. So what do they try next?

F1 is really just an expensive engineering competition. But it's a challenge to enter new markets, attract fans, and grow revenue when everyone knows the end result.


StattoBets Dave Monthly Subscription - Soccer - Tennis - Darts

Stattobets write ups, analysis and bets are available to monthly subscribers.

Results = points bet 34780 profit +1506.90 ROI +4.33% Full details here

Monthly subs are £50 a month and can be cancelled at any time. You can sign up here


Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated on 1st July 2023. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £67,126 All bets have an ROI +3.05%

A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £71,176 a 1678% increase 

 

 

 

The Road to Riches Weekend of 29th-30th July

Posted on 26 Jul 2023 16:17 in Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew

Coming up this weekend

  • Horse Racing, On the flat at Ascot, Newcastle, Newmarket, Salisbury, Windsor and York
  • Cricket, the fifth Ashes Test continues at The Oval
  • Formula One, the Belgian Grand Prix
  • Rugby Union, the final round of the Rugby Championship
  • Tennis ATP Opens in Washington, Los Cabos and Kitzbuehel.
  • Golf the Wyndham Championship on the USPGA.

Qatar Goodwood Festival

The full package for Neil Channing’s selections for the Qatar Goodwood Festival , 1st-5th August, is now available at a cost of £150 here 


Free Tip

Rugby Championship South Africa v Argentina, Saturday 4.05pm Johannesburg

This being a Rugby World Cup Year the 2023 Rugby Championship has a curtailed schedule of three games per team, each team playing the other once rather than twice in other years and is a de facto set of warm up fixtures for France in the Autumn with South Africa especially experimenting in team selection.

For their first game of the tournament, South Africa sent ten of their best players on ahead to New Zealand ahead of the second game and the weakened team beat Australia 43-12 scoring six tries displaying their strength in depth. The first choice side then started poorly in Auckland the week after and were 17-0 down after 20 minutes. They recovered slightly to lose 35-20 but with a genuine feeling to many watching that the side wasn’t fully up to speed nor going through the full range of attacking plans saving those for the World Cup.

Argentina meanwhile hosted the All-Blacks in the first round and lost 41-12 before travelling to Australia a week later and winning an exciting game late on 34-31 despite being far from their best. Argentina’s last three wins are now all away, to New Zealand, England and now Australia, and are a much improved team.

South Africa have been showing signs of playing a more expansive game than is their recent style that led them to 2019 Rugby World Cup victory but are hamstrung in the short term by the absence of starting fly-half Handre Pollard to direct affairs. They have made nine changes for this game.

The Pumas are still missing some key players like Juan Cruz Mallia, Guido Petti and Marcos Kremer, who will all be a big boost once they return, and there are a few areas, like the scrum and defence, where Argentines can undoubtedly improve and South Africa will no doubt look to capitalise on this weekend

South Africa are a whopping 18-19 point favourites for this Johannesburg game. By the time this match is played I am expecting the All Blacks to have won the championship, beating Australia earlier in the day and for Argentina to put up a spirited fight and hopefully cover this big point spread

12 points Argentina +19 at 10/11 William Hill and +18 generally (Evens Bet365)

 


Opportunities

As I write, ahead of the fifth Ashes Test at the Oval later this week, the disappointment that two days of Manchester rain prevented England from most likely winning a game they dominated and going into the final match 2-2 remains. However despite being on the wrong side of weather variance, the truth is that had they not missed opportunities to win the first two Tests where their approach veered from the positive to the reckless they might now be at least 2-1 up rather than at best hoping to draw a series in which they cannot regain the Ashes.

Before this series, they had lost only twice and one of those times was by one run in Wellington yet the first part of this series was characterised by careless mistakes. The England management may insist that there is nothing to regret but with the fate of the Ashes now settled it is fair to examine how else they let good positions slip in the first two Tests.

To lose at Edgbaston after dictating play for most of five days was certainly careless. Ultimately a win was squandered in the final session when Australia were eight down with 55 still needed, but there were earlier opportunities to take an even firmer grip on the game. These included Stuart Broad overstepping when he bowled Usman Khawaja 112 runs into his eventual 141 (one of 23 no balls bowled by England, compared with Australia’s eight) and Jonny Bairstow failing to stump Cameron Green and dropping Alex Carey, errors that cost 78. Perhaps most unforgiveable was England’s batting on the fourth day when Root, Bairstow and Harry Brook all got into the forties only to give their wickets away. Australia’s target of 282 should have been more.

The 43-run margin of defeat at Lord’s flattered England, but they should never have got into the position of needing as many as 371 in the fourth innings. They might have dismissed Australia for fewer than 416 had Ollie Pope caught David Warner on 20 (he eventually made 66), but their most egregious play was Pope, Ben Duckett, Root and Brook falling to a short-ball barrage shortly after Lyon had gone down with a series-ending injury. With more composure they might have secured a first-innings lead rather than a deficit of 91

If England win at the Oval and secure a 2-2 draw they can reasonably argue that they have gone toe-to-toe with the world Test champions, and even had the better of them given their superiority in Manchester.

In reality, England are still learning how best to play Bazball. It is telling that they got better with each match of this series; they started too slowly with the ball and too erratically with their batting and catching. They are great value for money, but not yet consistently executing their aggressive plans, and because of that this summer represents a missed opportunity.


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Stattobets write ups, analysis and bets are available to monthly subscribers.

Results = points bet 34780 profit +1506.90 ROI +4.33% Full details here

Monthly subs are £50 a month and can be cancelled at any time. You can sign up here


Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated on 1st July 2023. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £67,126 All bets have an ROI +3.05%

A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £71,176 a 1678% increase 

 

 

 

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