Sports fans and punters have long been waiting for the second half of 2019 as we have both the Cricket and Rugby World Cups to look forward to. 

The Cricket World Cup gets going in England on Thursday and South Africa are in action early against the hosts.  Bookmakers will be offering betting on each match including in-running on a variety of markets, but the focus of this article is some of the long term bets you can place.  Let’s start with a look at the outright betting where hosts England are favourites at 2/1 ahead of India 3/1 and a rejuvenated Australia third favourites at 4/1.  You can get 10/1 the Proteas win the Cup and all of the other teams are 10/1 and better. 

I have not being following cricket that closely during the year, but I will certainly get involved in this Tournament and for me Australia look like they could be the business at 4/1.  Chris Sturdy wrote our outright preview on Goodforthegame and he fancies New Zealand to go deep and has backed them to make the semi-finals at 12/10 and win the Tournament at 10/1. 

There are a host of long term exotic markets to keep punters interested such as which player will hit the most 6’s in the Tournament, Chris Gayle is 7/1 joint favourite with Buttler from England but my money here is on Australian opener, David Warner, currently priced at 17/2 at World Sports Betting. 

I never thought I would ever see the day when there is even thought given to a team scoring 500 runs or more, but with the current World Record at 481 it is certainly not impossible and Chris reckons the 9/1 that we will get 500 or more at WSB is worth a small interest.  I am also going to side with him in another market and that is the team to score the most 6’s where England are trading at 3/1 joint favourites with the West Indies.  England have loads of big hitters up the order and while West Indies boast plenty of players who can clear the boundary, I am not sure how deep they will go in the Tournament.

Enjoy the World Cup and if you fancy the Proteas to win and the Springboks to deliver in Japan you can get a 100/1 on the double.

Twitter: @BrentGraham

 
This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 30th of May 2019.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and sends a  free weekly e-mail list just CLICK HERE to register