It’s time for the Ashes Test series once more as England travel to Australia in their bid to retain the urn following a splendid victory in 2015. The build up to the tournament has not been without incident this year with Ben Stokes capturing the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The England team will no doubt miss his energy and aggression which would have better utilised against the Aussies than in a street brawl in Bristol.
Taking the urn
England captain Joe Root has quietly gone about his business in preparation for this Test series while the hosts have made it their goal to upset and goad the congenial Yorkshireman. Australia has made no secret of placing a target on the captain’s back, but his calm and measured response was simply to put every single one of the opposition players on notice.
Australian vice-captain David Warner has already asserted that cricket is war, but Root is a measured and sensible character who doesn’t bite on every baited hook. Responding to the reports with, ‘I think that’s a bit extreme,’ provided a dismissive reality check to the mind games and the closest we’ve seen to a put down from the English camp. That said, Australian captain Steve Smith may yet come to wish his second in charge would keep a lid on it.
Place your bets
With the British press seemingly not holding out much hope of a series win England go into the Test with only the Ashes to lose. That alone should surely be enough to fire them up, and with Australia seemingly below their imperious best there is room enough for optimism. Australia are currently below England in the ICC rankings and evenly matched on the ODI.
With the first of the Tests being on the November 23, the question turns from who you might hope to win to whom you’d place your hard-earned money on. A £30 bet on England to win the Ashes outright will return you a tidy £130 with odds having moved out from 3/1 at the end to October to their current value of 10/3. Meanwhile the price for Australia to win outright has moved in from 1/2 to 2/5. bet365 don’t place much stock in a draw for this series with odds remaining a comparative long shot at 7/1.
Player of the series
If the trash-talking David Warner takes your fancy for best player this year, odds of 5/1 should certainly tempt you. The fiery batsman has a lot to live up to considering his choice of words in the build up to the tournament, so he could be good value with a point to prove. If you fancy a more measured and thoughtful player then Australian captain Steve Smith is similarly placed at 5/1.
Smith certainly has the edge at the wicket with odds of 13/8 being offered for the captain to be best Australian batsman. Warner is not far behind however with a price of 7/4. There certainly isn’t a lot to separate the two in the betting.
Root it out
On the other side of the fence, Joe Root is priced at a healthy 9/1, with the longer price a greater reflection on the perceived chances of his side rather than his own ability. Perhaps memories of his after-match encounter with Warner in 2013 will be enough to spur him on to greatness. To narrow the scope of your bet you can instead select Root for best batsman which will give you odds of 5/1. For best English batsman, bet365 is offering odds of 13/8 on Root, 9/4 for Cook and 6/1 for Bairstow, and if you don’t fancy any of those to perform you’d be better placing your money on Australia outright.
Australia will be delighted to have Mitchell Starc back from injury and he is sure to be heavily backed for the title of Australia’s top bowler. The price has come in sharply from 7/4 to 11/8 for the talismanic player, but if he’s anything like his best that could still prove good value. Keep an eye on those odds as they could potentially come in further. In the pre-series build-up, Starc was quick to elevate his fellow New South Wales player Josh Hazlewood to ’genius’. Should Hazlewood prove his mettle a £10 bet on the man from Tamworth would put £30 in your pocket with odds of 2/1.
Top English bowling hopefuls are Anderson at 7/4, Broad at 9/4 and Woakes and Ali at 7/2 and 9/2 respectively. At 35 this could be the last opportunity for Anderson to win a Test series down under so you can certainly expect him to well motivated. His opening partner Broad is also coming into a good run of form at present so it is hard to look past England’s starting two for best English bowler.
Correct score
If you fancy a bet on the correct score of the series you’ll find the shortest odds on Australia to win 3-1 at 5/1. Draws do not count towards the score for either team so a 3-1 prediction is banking on 3 wins for Australia, one for England and one draw. An Australian whitewash of 5-0 will get you 8/1 for the rout. Meanwhile a perfect 5-0 for England is 80-1.
If you fancy the test to end in stalemate 0-0 is longshot of 500/1, 1-1 is 33/1 and 2-2 is offered at 7/1. If you really fancy a draw, your best option is to head to the outright market and select a draw at 7/1.
The unknown and the new
Although there has already been 70 Ashes series, this year will see something completely new added to the mix, with the second Test of the 2017 tour being a day/night Test. This will be the first time the two teams have played each other in a such an event and should add a new layer of interest for both players and punters.
The Test may favour the hosts rather more than the visitors as the Australian team has more experience, with England only playing once with the pink ball. That Test resulted in an emphatic win for the English at Edgbaston, but coming against the West Indies any jubilation has to be tempered by questions about the quality of the opposition.
For this reason, if Australia can win the first Test in the series it would certainly place them in good stead to take the first two and odds for the Australian team to be leading after the first two tests place them as heavy favourites at 1/3. Accounting for a fired up England team and a degree of uncertainty surrounding the maiden day/night Test, the reverse sees England at 9/4.
