The crucial final One-Dayer in Christchurch was finally lost to the rain and the unfathomable Duckworth-Lewis method which granted a win to New Zealand (who were actually) looking like losing, simply because it rained.

One day I’ll try to grasp the ins and outs of their bizarre equations and attempt an explanation for all you baffled cricket betting fans. Mind you, it’s too early to feel a lot of enthusiasm for the prospect of the England team in the looming test series after seeing their low key performance in such a vital game.

It was a vital game because it needed to be the confidence boosting springboard that England craves to enter this test series with more than a wing and a prayer for success. After a promising start, England fell short of a respectable score by about thirty or forty runs.

As usual they blamed a wicket that the New Zealanders subsequently seemed to have little problem with. It looked like they would cruise home but suddenly, thanks largely to Sidebottom, wickets fell and the home team were looking at forty runs with stacks of overs but only four wickets left. Then the rains came and Duckworth-Lewis dictated the result.

The thing is, this England team has the components to succeed at the highest level. They have the bowlers, the batsmen and the fielders and when they all play well together they win matches. The real problem is with the consistency of the batting and this causes a sense of insecurity in this area which they counter by bringing in an extra bat at the expense of a bowler which would have been, in the case of Christchurch, a spinner to vary the pace of the game.

Online betting buffs recognise that, until England can stabilise the mindset of the top five batsmen and make them as reliable as a Boycott, Barrington or Botham then we will continue to struggle and be forced into decisions we would rather not have to make.

 Final Match at Christchurch Sat 23 Feb / Forthcoming Test Series first match Tue 4 March

2nd match Tue 12 Feb : After their resounding successes in the opening two Twenty20 matches against New Zealand last week, it came as a bit of a shock to cricket betting fans when England were thrashed in the first one-dayer at Wellington last Saturday.

Captain, Paul Collingwood, put it down to a misreading of the pitch. He thought it looked firm but it turned out to be soft. He claimed it was difficult to score on. Not so for the New Zealand team, written off by their own home press after the opening games, who managed a respectable six wicket win, accomplished before the floodlights had even begun to warm up.

Enthusiasts of online betting will form their own opinions but none will exclude criticism of tactics in the One Day team. OK, with specialists in each of the three formats, Twenty20, One Day (50 over) and Test, it’s becoming difficult for captains to quantify expertise in their available players, especially when injury and form come into the equation. There are basic tactical rules, however, and the England team has to take a more aggressive stance in the One Day Matches. Early snatched singles add up and take the pressure off the batsmen to take dangerous risks in later overs.

Thankfully, we can feel good about our bowling and the fielding was sharp and impressive. Let’s hope our batsmen can get it sorted for Tuesday’s meet in Hamilton.

Twenty20 cricket betting fans saw the England cricket team overcome their jet lag and intensive training in New Zealand to thrash the home team by 38 runs in Monday’s Twenty20 match, in front of a 45,000-strong Auckland crowd. This offers good omens for the rest of the series.

Sports betting fans will recall the unexpected One Day Series win against Sri Lanka at the end of last year and know that this England team is brimming with confidence.

Man of the Match, Dimitri Mascarenhas powered England to their victory with a useful 31 and a couple of critical mid-order New Zealand wickets. Mascarenhas is a right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium-fast bowler. He holds the record for most runs for England in an over in a One Day International with 30, scored against India off of Yuvraj Singh on 5 September 2007, at The Oval, London.

Online betting enthusiasts will be relieved to hear that Kevin Pieterson is back in form, making 43 in a characteristic, superb display of batting. The whole team is on an up and talking about how cohesive they feel as a side. As Paul Collingwood observed, “We should gain a lot of confidence from this and you want to get on a roll. It’s been a good first week, we put in a lot of hard work in Christchurch and the boys are looking in confident form. Every aspect of our game was pretty good today.”

The Twenty20 format has revitalised interest in cricket but let’s not forget the forthcoming One Day matches and Test Series which will certainly provide a mouth-watering feast of opportunity for some exciting wagers and the many offers of free bets for new customers of online betting sites must be very tempting.

Cricket Betting eagerly watches the third match of the Sri Lanka v. England series started yesterday at the rebuilt Galle ground, destroyed by the tsunami three years ago. The people of Sri Lanka can be proud of their efforts in returning this venue to international standards since the disaster occurred. The ground was recently re-opened by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

England v Sri Lanka Cricket betting enthusiasts will join the Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene and England batsman Kevin Pieterson in observing the special and poignant commemoration that this test match represents. Many people who watched the last test here, four years ago, perished in the tragedy of the tsunami.

Unfortunately the start of the match was delayed by two hours due to a waterlogged pitch but play soon got underway in crushingly humid conditions. Sri Lanka got off to a shaky start, losing two wickets in the early overs. A third wicket stand of 88 looked like redeeming them but their recovery was thwarted by an  England fightback which left the visitors in a promising position when bad light terminated play for the day.

England went into this final test one down and a loss in Galle would push their ICC test ranking down from second to fifth. They will strongly resist such a fall in status and this, coupled with the return to form of various England players may provide online betting fans with an unexpected and valuable opportunity.

Test Cricket. Sri Lanka v. England   (2nd test ended today, Thursday and 3rd starts next Tuesday)

Things are shaping up badly for England in the Test Series against Sri Lanka and cricket betting fans will perhaps have to look to individual performances or spread betting to hold their interest in the third Test. Having lost the first of the three and scraped a draw in Colombo, England go to Galle with a seriously uphill task to even the series and save face.

Apart from the huge threat from the bowling of record-holding Muralitheran, the ground at Galle was completely devastated in the Tsunami tragedy on Boxing Day 2004 and the first day of the third test match will be all but the third anniversary of the tragedy and the first game played there since the ground was completely rebuilt. It will be a poignant moment and Sri Lanka will be desperate to win as a commemoration to their lost fellow country folk.

Hope might come from the budding return to form of Cook and Pietersen and Harmison seems to have rediscovered his aggression while captain, Michael Vaughan is looking more solid by the day.

England have played well in this series and their current dire state has to be put down to the excellence of the Sri Lankan team. What’s more, England team confidence will be low when they get to Galle and grounds for optimism for a win, among online betting enthusiasts, are shaky indeed.

Get your Cricket Free Bets registered ready for the coming tests with England against Sri Lanka as Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard fight to get fit and to fighting form to face the host nation in the coming series.

Spin always plays a part and from the Sri Lankans’ point of view and they’ll try to exploit the pitches. We’ve got great spin bowlers to counter this part of their armoury but I can’t help feeling that these coming tests may be decided by pace and who can take the wickets whilst the spinners take a break.

The pace men won’t get too much assistance from the pitches which makes me feel that Steve Harmison will be nullified as he will lose his main weapon of bounce and he doesn’t move it very much laterally. Mallinger to me will be one of the key bowlers in this series because he has mastered the yorker. This means he will take the pitch out of the equation and fire those 90 mph toe crunchers at the english batsmen on a regular basis. I’m sure Peter Moores has thought this through but let’s see how the players defend against Mallinger when they are out in the middle and the pressure (as well as the heat!) is on.

After a great tournament, we are finally down to the last pair in the twenty20 cricket final and cricket betting fans should get their free bets ready for a great game ahead. The semi final between New Zealand and Pakistan didn’t quite reach expectations but the Indian victory over the Aussies was one to remember.

After Yuvraj Singh had paved the way for a solid Indian batting foundation after one of the most memorable sixes off Brett Lee, the Aussies must still have fancied it. They were well set to pass the Indian total until they lost Matthew Hayden who, until then, had looked very comfortable. India got Adam Gilchrist cheaply as Sree Santh bowled superbly but couldn’t keep his aggression under control! He was the pick of the Pakistani bowlers as India killed off the Aussies at the death, especially when Symonds had gone.

So the Indians take on Pakistan in what will be another powder keg of a match and all the bookmakers have cricket free bets offers surrounding the final.

As a final word to the aussies, we have to take our hats off to them as good sports these days, they are true professionals in acknowledging defeat to a better side. They don’t look for excuses and look as though they enjoyed the occasion and give credit to an opposition that just seemed to want it more.

After their recent victory over India in the one day series, English cricket betting will be growing in interest again with Twenty20 cricket free bets coming to the fore as the Twenty20 world cup gets close.

England showed their trademark fighting quality in the final match of the one day series and comfortably beat India to take the series when they had faltered after some good performances early on. India are a very good side and the series win must give the squad confidence for the Twenty20.

It must be said, however, that the Twenty20 game is totally different and England will realise that. It’s good to see newcomer Luke Wright included and let’s hope he can produce because his style of opening could be the difference between England’s progression to the later stages or not.

If you look at previous candidates for the opening spot in this type of competition, namely Marcus Trescothick and Mal Loy, these are the type of pinch-hitters that England opening pair will have to emulate to put pressure on their opponents. We all know what Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist do in the first 5 overs and the only way to combat it is to have an equivalent opening salvo.

The bowlers will do their job but it has to be said that the competition is more a batsman’s domain.

After the disappointing miss of sewing up a victory in the first test, cricket betting fans would have looked online for cricket free bets on the England v India series for odds on an England victory in the second match. Not to be - England couldn’t post a decent total in their first innings and India made them pay.

Now all the pressure is on England and today will make for fascinating viewing. It has been a while since England have been under this sort of pressure on home soil. Strauss and Cook started well on the Sunday to close at 43 without loss but let’s see how the day goes. it’s hard to say but England still do have that ability to collapse, and that will be what’s on the mind of the Indians as they press for wickets today. I don’t think we’ve seen England lose so many sessions in a test match one after the other to leave them so far behind their opponents. Not only was the batting disappointing but the bowlers didn’t make headway either.

So today, we see a reversal of what people will look for in the cricket betting world. Get your free bets organised for what could be a close finish today. one great offer at the moment is the new £50 Betfred free bet for the next fortnight.

As Alan Donald, rightly has his consultancy role extended with England, Paul Collingwood was quick to sing his praises after their victory over the West Indies on Sunday. Cricket betting fans will be thrilled to place their bets on the possibilities of betting on English victories and results coming from the bowlers’ as well as the batsmen’s efforts.

Alan Donald has always been a man who tells things as they are, and I’m sure there will have been some straight talking to the England bowlers between the Twenty20 matches last week and Sundays’ win. On Sunday I think we saw the second string English bowlers hit the deck and get it in the right place. James Anderson was always up around the 88mph mark and shaping the ball away from the left hander, back into the right hander. It was great to see because you never really felt as though Anderson has been at his best since he first came on the scene.

It was interesting that after the match, Anderson himself commented on Alan Donald’s influencing him to “hold his action” a little longer at the crease. These simple hints are what make the difference, and having been a fan of Alan Donald in his playing days, his own uncluttered bowling action was testament to how keeping things simple works.

I blogged about Alan Donald just after it was first announced that he was to take on the role with England and I will back him to add to his current success by the time we come t the Twenty20 world cup.