Kohli to ton up?
Virat Kohli is not value at 15/8 for top India runscorer. As discussed in our match preview, he has now gone 18 ODI and T20 matches without winning the market for India.
Does this make it increasingly likely the next game will be the big one? Possibly. But in terms of his win rates, his chances have been blown out of the water. We can’t bet a 15/8 chance with implied probability of 34.8% when his two-year probability is 27%. That’s a massive chunk against us. Long term it is hard to see when we will bet Kohli again.
Kohli is, however, value to score a century. Sportsbook offer 9/2 abut him raising his bat. How can we consider betting him for a century but not top bat, you may think, it makes no sense.
Well, for a start we have to have proof that the odds are in our favour (or wrong, to put it another way). Secondly, Kohli scoring a century is no guarantee of a winning top-bat bet. He could make 101 and Shikhar Dhawan could make 102. They’re not the same wager.
On career form, Kohli has a 17.9% chance of scoring a ton. Sportsbook make it 18.2%. It is true that on two-year form, our edge disappears. It’s 15.6%. So we can’t claim that this is outstanding value. However, his form against Australia on both filters is good. It’s three tons in 13 innings (two years) and eight in 39 (career).
In game one, Kohli looked in decent nick before he fell into a trap set by Aaron Finch, the Aussie skipper. There appeared little wrong with timing or technique so he should improve for the run.
Australia top bat wins/matches
Finch 11 t/49
Maxwell 4/49
Stoinis 2/42
Smith 4/31
Warner 9/33
Carey 1/12
Australia top bowler wins/matches
Hazlewood 4 2t/18
Starc 5 4t/28
Cummins 6 4t/38
Zampa 7 6t/36
India top bat wins/matches
Kohli 18/67
Dhawan 15/60
Hardik 3/48
Jadeja 1/33
Rahul 3/25
India top bowler wins/matches
Bumrah 8 9t/52
Kuldeep 13 13t/58
Chahal 9 4t/48
Hardik 6t/47
Shami 7 2t/27
Jadeja 3/34
Six appeal?
Australia are 4/6 and 5/6 favourites to hit most fours and most sixes. Understandable, perhaps, if one thinks about home advantage and then makes the lazy assumption about body stereotypes for males of the two countries.
But Australia didn’t hit more sixes than India in game one – a tie at nine each. They did monster more fours, though, and comfortably, too – 34 beating 24.
Despite this, the gulf between the two sides in the last two years is not as big as you might think. In fact, there is no gap at all in terms of average fours hits. And the gap for sixes is in decimal points, even when we filter India away and Australia at home. It suggests that Sportsbook’s 6/5 about most sixes is not a terrible wager.
Last two years average fours/sixes per game
Australia 24.1/4.4
India 24.1/4.6
Home-away
Australia 23.6/4.4
India 22.4/4.3