ThereÂ’s something very interesting going on in Australia at the moment. Their national cricket team, long presumed the dominant force in test and One Day International cricket, is in danger of losing the top spot to a South African side that remains indomitable at home and has the best win record of any cricketing nation in its away matches. Certainly, as cricket betting enthusiasts will acknowledge, this turnabout has occurred partly as a result of the lost of legendary Aussie stalwarts of the game such as Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Adam Gilchrist, but it is also due to the continued development of skill and positivity within the South African team.

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Following the terrible events in Mumbai a couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog for these pages which suggested that it would be a mistake for the England cricket team to return to India. The danger was too great and concentration, by all the players, on the matches would be impossible. My thinking was based on the worrying build-up of the Indian army on the Pakistan border and the uncertainty that this atrocity was an isolated incident. Well, fellow Test Cricket betting fans, I was wrong. Our cricketers have returned and cricket is now better for it. The first match is being played as though nothing had happened and the dark forces of terrorism have been shown their impotence in their efforts to make any serious impact on the way our life is conducted in the free world.

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The terrible events in Mumbai have brought the England cricket tour of India to a close and the tourists have returned home. Two One Day Internationals have been abandoned but no one is too bothered about that with England five down and facing a whitewash. Two test matches are currently planned for the 11th and 19th December in Ahmedabad and Chennai with a warm-up match at Baroda still to be scheduled. There is talk of returning for these matches and the current view seems to be that it will be left to the players to decide.

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The Twenty20 Cricket Champions League due to take place next Wednesday in Mumbai, India has been postponed due to the recent terrorist killings. More than a hunded people have been shot dead with hundreds more injured it has been reported. Under this black cloud, the Indian officials have called off the event, stating that they cannot insure the safety of the players.

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Perhaps, like me, cricket betting fans occasionally muse about the Duckworth / Lewis duo, imagining them to be roughly a cross between the cricketing encyclopaedia and enthusiast, Jonathan Agnew and that bloke off Channel 4 that did the Test match computer graphics. The kind of guys who would let slip a couple of anecdotes about old Freddie Trueman or a reflection on the fluidity of Peter May. You would be disappointed. Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis are statisticians whose sole terms of reference were cold and clinical, mathematical data from other matches when they invented their method of producing incomprehensible and seemingly outrageously unfair results in cricket matches that routinely crush the dreams of a nation.

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Well, let’s start with the bad news first – India deserved to win the third One Day International in Kanpur. Their spin bowlers still have mastery over the English bat and their batsmen are more consistent than ours. The good news for cricket betting fans is that we’re improving. Our bowling aggression and accuracy is on the up and casting Ravi Bopara in the role of opener, in place of Matthew Prior with Captain, Kevin Pietersen, at number three, seems to have worked well. Ravi Bopara needs to settle into the role but is showing every sign that he will.

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The joust currently underway in India between a team which has just put Australia to the sword and a newly resurgent England that enjoyed a spectacular defeat of South Africa earlier this year may well be an event which reveals to we cricket betting fans whether or not India is now the top cricket team in the world. Their score in the first One Day International of 387 – 5 is the highest tally India has ever scored against a test Nation and the highest score ever conceded by England playing in this format.

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As the concentration span of modern-day humans diminishes, so we should not be surprised at the arrival of One Day Cricket and then Twenty20. After all, these variations are exciting for cricket betting enthusiasts and why not have events which are purely fun to contrast with the seriousness of County and Test cricket? Then along came the Indian Premier League with big money offers to players who suddenly find themselves drawn to large paydays and then suffer the consequent conflict with their County and long term Test Match responsibilities.

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Cricket betting fans the world over would be well advised to keep an eye on events in India over the next few weeks when the Australian cricket team take on India in a four match test series starting tomorrow in Bangalore. The Indian cricket team have given the Australians their most challenging moments in the last fifteen years of their domination of international cricket. Now the Australian team, depleted by the retirement last year of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Damien Martyn and Justin Langer and, more recently the teamÂ’s most formidable binding influence, Adam Gilchrist, must show that they have met the challenge of compensating for the loss of these household names.

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Kevin Pietersen faces the first real examination of his captaincy credentials in the forthcoming jaunt to India and I believe cricket betting enthusiasts will join me in an unusually optimistic expectation of the outcome. He certainly achieved immediate results in the One Day International (ODI) series against South Africa, but that was a team resting on the laurels of their domination of the test match series and unfocused on the lesser ODI element of their tour. India will put up a fight.

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