stuat broad

England will look to push on towards a series whitewash against Pakistan at the Oval on Thursday, as they start the Third Test full of confidence. Stan James provides great coverage on the cricket betting, where you can follow the action with live in-play betting. Cricket is great for this service, it was almost made for it. When you go to Stan James, which is a wonderfully clean and easily navigable site, you can initially earn yourself a free £25 bet on a new account. Simply open a new account and after you first bet on that new account has been settled, the online bookmaker will give you a free bet to the value of your initial stake. Just land on Stan James home page and the wealth of betting opportunities will certainly strike you. Scroll down the page to see all of the latest sporting action, with direct links to the top markets. There are also plenty of sporting promotions to take advantage of on all of the top sporting events, which makes Stan James an excellent choice for your online betting.

England captain Andrew Strauss will be happy with the way that England have dominated the visitors, who came to the UK with the potential threat of causing a lot of difficulties for the English batsmen. That simply hasn’t happened as England have raced out to a 2-0 series lead against a side who, four years ago, forfeited a match against England amid reports of ball tampering. The series, while it has been a little short of being fully competitive, has had its moment, especially in the second Test when Stuart Broad was caught up in a ball-throwing incident. Pakistan are blaming Broad for the injury to wicket keeper Haider’s finger, who has now had to return home to Pakistan. That will be more good news for England ahead of the Third Test, as into the side will come Kamran Akmal who has been under heavy criticism for the amount of dropped catches this year. He has been dropped from the side twice this year already. But, for England, captain Strauss needs to keep his players in check, and not let emotions run too wild where they become detrimental to performance. After the ball-throwing incident, Broad missed an easy run out chance because he over threw, still riled up over confrontations.

The dismal performances by Pakistan, should lead to the recall of Mohammad Yousuf, who had retired from international duty, after captaining his side through a series whitewash against Australia at the start of the year. The talismanic batsman usually scores well against England, but he will probably be a little rusty having not played much top level competitive cricket this year. He has been lured out of retirement though, as the desperate Pakistani side look for some inspiration in their batting line up. England have been tearing through the Pakistan batting with little problems, with James Anderson, Steve Finn and Stuart Broad being versatile enough in their approach to skittle the visitors out. One of the key factors as to why England has done so well, is simply because of the English conditions. Cloudy days make for good swing bowling and that is what James Anderson, and Stuart Broad to some extent have been doing so well. To some surprise, England have already come out and named their side for the Third Test, and it remains unchanged from the first two encounters.

That means that under fire opener Alastair Cook, who is desperately needing some runs as he is averaging around 14 in his seven summer test matches this year, remains in the side. It feels like the last chance saloon for the talented batsman, who has been struggling with his footwork for some time. He will never get a better chance to impress than at the Oval, which will be the best batting surface out of the Test Series. The Oval is flat, and that makes the job of the batsmen just a little bit easier, as they can read the bounce of the ball with some predictability. But if Cook fails to hit the mark again, then he could be on the verge of missing out on The Ashes series in Australia which begins at the end of the year. The good news for England, is that there is good competition for places, and the thought of missing out on the Ashes should spur Cook on, if it doesn’t mount more pressure on him. He may just be worth a shot to come through his slump at the Oval and finish as England’s top batsman. England do need some improvement in general across their batting performances, having only broken 300 in one of four innings against Pakistan. The only trouble with England’s batting, is that they are not scoring enough runs. The opportunities have been there to run up massive scores, but they haven’t delivered. When you only have one player in the top twenty batsmen in the world (Kevin Pietersen) then it could spell trouble against the top sides like Australia.

With regards to the Ashes, Aussie skipper Ricky Ponting has been quoted as saying that Australia could win the series 5-0. The Ashes start on November 25th, and Ponting has been stirring things up, recalling memories of 2006-07 when the Aussies did whitewash England in the Ashes. But the England side of today are a lot more together as a unit, and have a lot more quality and versatility within it. In a cricket side, not everyone will be functioning at the top of their game every match, but as long as there are supporting players to pick up the slack, then that is what makes a good team. With players like Jonathan Trott and Eoin Morgan proving invaluable to England with the bat at the moment, Andrew Strauss can rest with some certainty that probably the only thing that will stop them running up an unassailable three nil lead in the series would be complacency.

Expect the conditions at the Oval to suit the England swing bowlers. Pakistan have strength with their swing, but they look a disorganised and dare it be said, uninterested side as a whole. The visitors have been weakened further with Gul out through injury and we shall await to see just how Yousuf performs on his big return. On a whole, England are not a great side, but they are above average and they need to continue building momentum ahead of the Ashes. Pakistan have individual threats, but they just don’t look likely enough to pull everything together as a team at the moment. Therefore back another England win and look for sub-market betting to enhance potential returns.

End of day one, England were 233 all out, with Pakistan 48/1 in reply at close of play.

Revised Odds:
England to win: 6/5 at Stan James
Draw: 9/2 at Stan James
Pakistan to win: 5/4 at Stan James

England: Andrew Strauss (capt), Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Eoin Morgan, Matt Prior (wkt), Graeme Swann, Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Steven Finn.

England started their winter tour of South Africa, home of the football World Cup 2010, with a warm up match against the Diamond Eagles. All in all it was a bit of one sided match, as England ran up a score of 294-7 in the One Day fixture. The competition for places in the One Day should hot up next week, when superstar batsman Kevin Pietersen flies to South Africa to join up with the England squad, and so that should keep some of the batsmen on their toes. Ashes Game Five hero batsman Jonathan Trott made a great statement as to his form, as he cracked a very good 85 off a 104 balls, including seven boundaries. Skipper Andrew Strauss also contributed heavily with the bat, putting 72 runs on the board. Joe Denly and Paul Collingwood were the only batsmen not to make it into double figures.

In reply to the tourist’s good score, the Eagles only lasted for just over half of their allotted 50 overs in the game at Bloemfontein. The home side only rallied to a paltry 109, with England’s bowlers all sharing the spoils. Jimmy Anderson, Paul Collingwood, Sajid Mahmood and Graeme Swann all took two wickets each, as did Stuart Broad at a price. The seamer picked up an injury to his shoulder in the match, in which he only bowled four overs, but the injury was apparently picked up while fielding and not bowling. With Freddie Flintoff retiring from Test Matches, and still in rehabilitation which keeps him out of the One Day Internaional format, the importance of having Broad in the team is unquestionable.

It is a long winter tour for the England cricket team, which includes four Test Matches against the Proteas, five One Day Internationals and a couple of Twenty20 internationals. The youngster Stuart Broad is an important part of the success of the tour. He is the fire in the belly of the team, and he will not take part in England’s next warm up match, which is against the Warriors on Sunday. With a few more warm up games to get under their belt ahead of the main events, the England management will want to keep Broad in shape for the England v South Africa matches, in which he should be playing all forms of the game.

It is fair to say that England and One Day games generally do not go together well, especially after suffering horrendously in the summer against Australia. They did redeem themselves a little with some performances in the Champions Trophy, but there is clearly still work to be done. While this was simply a warm up game, it should at least build a little confidence. With Strauss, Trott and Eoin Morgan all contributing well, it should at least build a bit of confidence to take into the tour. It is the place of Eoin Morgan which is probably most vulnerable when it comes to the re-selection of Kevin Pietersen. England’s next fixture is on Sunday, and it will likely be the same familiar team which takes the field. England are also waiting on the fitness of Graham Onions.

While you will be hard pushed to find odds on the warm up games, pay close attention to them for individual form, as it will help to gauge some sort of value in price when it comes to the One Day International Series against South Africa. The best prices for which can be found below. As well as the England fixutres, take note that the South Africans are playing warm up fixtures too, most of them on the same day as the England ones.

England v South Africa ODI Series
South Africa to win: 2/5 at Totesport
Draw: 23/2 at Betfair
England to win: 9/4 at Victor Chandler