Betting the biggest event of the year, the Cricket World Cup
Oct 12, 2023
The world's third largest multinational sports event,behind the Olympics and Football World Cup, is underway! It will be the biggest event of the year, with an estimated 2B people watching. It will also be the most bet on event of the year. It started a week ago with New Zealand’s thrashing of England. Tomorrow is the biggest match until the Final on November 19th, a clash between India and Pakistan, arguably the world’s biggest sporting rivalry. Think Ohio State-Michigan, UNC-Duke, Red Sox-Yankees combined but both countries have nukes facing eachother! A rivalry so strained, that they refuse to play eachother except in World Cups.
In my opinion, cricket is the best sport to bet on, especially live. There are so many holes and edges that the sportsbooks just can’t catch up to. I’ll go through that later, but, first, let’s get you caught up on what cricket actually is.
Cricket Primer
“You gotta know what a crumpet is to understand cricket!”-Raphael, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Ehh, cricket is actually easy to understand. I’ll go through and compare it to baseball as it’s very similar.
First, there are three versions of the game, based on the length. One is the length of a baseball game (T20), the second is about eight hours long (ODI), and the third is five days long (Test). This World Cup is being played in the ODI (one-day international) format.
In an ODI match, one team bats first and sets a score. The other team bats second, and has to beat that score. It’s not like baseball where one team bats and the second one follows for nine innings. They both bat once. A team bats for 50 overs or until all their batters are out. An over is 6 balls, so think of it as similar to being 50 at-bats in a baseball game. Two batters are out there at a time. One is the one doing the batting, and the other one is on the other side, and they run back and forth. So, both of them will get a chance to bat.
Runs are scored as follows:
- Run back and forth, each time you do, it’s a run. Like baseball, singles and doubles are most common.
- Hitting the ball out of the ground on the ground is four runs. It's ike a ground rule double, but there’s no wall.
- Hitting the ball out of the ground on the fly is six runs. Think of it being like a home run.
- Errors by the bowling (pitching) team. A wide or a no-ball (think a ball or balk in baseball) is a run.
A good score is 300. A really good score is 350, and a historical score is 400.
How do batters get out? It’s mostly about this wooden thing called a wicket. If the bowler hits it, then you’re out (think of it as a strike, but only one). Or, if you’re running back and forth and the fielder throws at it and hits it before you reach, then you’re out (like a force out). And, just like baseball, you can get caught out. But, unlike baseball, once you’re out, you’re out for the whole match. So, if you’re the equivalent of Shohei and you get out in your first ball, then you’re done batting for the match.
That’s a basic rundown. If you have any questions or want more detail, feel free to reach out!
Cricket World Cup Basics
The Cricket World Cup started last week in India and will run until November 19th. There are ten teams. They all play eachother once. The top four teams make it to the semifinals. Those winners play in the Final.
There’s usually one match a day, at 4:30 AM ET. If there’s a doubleheader, usually on Saturdays, the first match is at 1 AM ET. Note that after November 5th (the US time change), those times are 3:30 AM and 12 AM respectively. Since a match will last about 8 hours, you’ll be able to catch a large part of it. Matches are on ESPN+ and Willow TV, an add on to most streaming services.
India is the big betting favorite. Australia, England, South Africa, New Zealand and Pakistan are the next favorites, and Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and the Netherlands are the long-shots. India is the #1 ranked team in the world. England are the defending champs. New Zealand are the defending runner-ups. Australia is the most successful team historically, and South Africa always does well but chokes in the knockout rounds.
Let’s get to the most important pregame event, the coin toss.
The Coin Toss
The pregame coin toss in cricket is more important than in any other sport. Odds literally move quite a bit based on who won or who lost. The coin toss happens about half an hour before the game.
In cricket, the team who wins the coin toss decides whether to field or bat first. It might seem like a simple decision, right? I want to field first so I know what score to beat? Well, not really. A lot goes into the decision.
Remember, a game is eight hours long, so conditions change. Some conditions might be better if you’re a power team, or power bowling team (think throwing a bunch of fastballs like the 90’s Braves). Or, if you’re a spin bowling team (think throwing a bunch of change-ups, sliders, and curveballs). Depending on the conditions, it might be better to bat first or second.
The tournament is taking place in India with a start time of 2 PM, and the team batting first will have to bat during the daytime in the intense heat, whereas the team batting second will start batting around 6 PM in the cool evening/night. Do you want your team fielding for 3-4 hours in the intense sun? Sometimes batters are out there for an hour or more. Do you want them out there in the intense sun? In the evening, there’s dew/moisture on the ground, which slows the ball down. And so, a lot goes into that decision.
So, why does this matter from a betting perspective? I mentioned odds literally change based off of it. An underdog can go from +130 to +140 or +150 if they lose the toss. I would NOT make any pregame bets before the toss.
TIP: Watch the interviews right after the toss. Let’s say a captain decides to field first. They’ll ask the other captain what they would’ve done right after the toss. If he said he would’ve also fielded, it means that team is now at a disadvantage, so there might be value in betting the other team.
However, the true value is in live betting.
Live Betting Totals
Cricket doesn’t have game over/unders. Or spreads. That’s because the score is dependent on who bats first and who wins. Let’s say you have a really good team like Australia, playing a bad team like Afghanistan. If Australia bats first, then Australia might post a score of 400. Afghanistan might only get 150. However, if Afghanistan bats first, then they’d post a score of 150, but all Australia needs is 151. They’ll never get to 400. And so, most cricket betting is on the moneyline, except live betting which has many more options.
One of those options is team totals. In that example I mentioned, you can bet over/under on Australia’s score. Over 350? Under 350, etc. Like in American sports, that number will change. However, honestly, the books have really bad models. So, I like to use one of the live cricket modeling apps. One of which is Cricket.com. Here’s what I like to do:
If the Cricket.com total deviates from the sportsbooks total by more than 15 runs, then I’ll take a bet. For example, if Cricket.com says 370, and the sportsbook says 350, then I’ll take an over. I might make a few bets during the course of an at-bat. So, maybe an Over 360, 380, and maybe an Under 430, and hopefully it lands at 400 and I middle everything.
Note: On any live betting, I usually stop in the last 5-10 overs of an at-bat. It then gets a little dicey after that.
On the Cricket.com app, go to the "Criclytics" dashboard, and the team score projection for the winning percentage and the projected score.
Live Betting the Winner
I’ll use Cricket.com for live betting the winner as well. If the winning percentage deviates by more than 10% from the odds, I’ll take that team. I’ll also look for trends. Let’s say one team’s percentage is slowly and consistently increasing, then I’ll take them. But if I’m already on a side, I’ll take the other side if that first team’s percentage is decreasing in order to hedge a little bit. Ideally, you can get both sides at plus-money, or get on the winning side at the best odds.
Live Betting Player Scores/Partnerships
This is where it gets pretty fun because the books suck at this. Just like in all American sports, you can bet on an over/under on a player’s score. For the really good players, it might be 40. For the bad ones, maybe 15-20.
You shouldn’t Martingdale typically, but, in cricket it works on Unders. So, if I lose a bet, I’ll double it the next time. But only once. Here’s what I mean.
Let’s say pregame, a players total is 40. Well, for every run they score, it goes up by 1. So, if he scores 5 runs, then the live total is now 45. And so, if he gets to 40 and the new live total is 80, I’ll take another Under bet. Remember, a player can get out at any time! Even the best players get out for 0 runs, or 10 runs. 40 might be close to their median, but 80 might be one of their best performances ever. And so, if I lose, I’ll be okay with losing on one of the best performances ever. It’s like betting an Under on Steph Curry to score 25 points, and then when he reaches it, you bet an Under on him to score 50.
You can bet the same thing on partnerships. Remember how two batters are out there at the same time? That’s a partnership. As soon as one of them is out, the partnership is over, and so you can use the same strategy on partnerships.
That means, at any one time, you might have three bets going on simultaneously. One on each player, and another on the partnership.
This is where you can really rack up a bunch of wins quickly. I’m talking like 27-5 in a single match. Let’s take the Australia-South Africa match from the other day. The scorecard is located here.
For each batter, take a look at the R column. For most of them, even the South Africans who scored a respectable 311, they would’ve hit their second Under at least, except the first batter. So, that’s 17-1 right there. Then, see the “Fall of wickets.” The number after the dash is the runs scored when the partnership ended. So, South Africa’s first partnership was 108 runs. The second one was 50 (158-108), etc. South Africa’s might have gone 4-3, but Australia’s would’ve gone 9-1. And so, that’s 13-5 + 17-1 for 30-6. So, that’s where you can really make a lot of $$ in live betting. However, get a feel for the game, and don’t triple up. Just take the L’s if needed. Sometimes, teams just do very well. Sometimes, you will go 5-5, but don’t chase. Don’t put yourself in a situation where you go like 6-15 and keep your unit size small.
Advanced Analysis
If you really want to get advanced, run some analyses on each player and team’s partnerships, using Statguru.
Maybe a player gets out early a lot, but if he gets through 20 runs or 5 overs, maybe he stays out there for awhile? So an over bet might be good? Maybe you want to look at other player props as well. StatGuru is great to run some basic analyses. Do know that sometimes your feel gets to be accurate, that you’re about to place a bet, and then what you thought would’ve happens then happens before you placed your bet in. That’s the worst!
Wrap Up
Cricket is a long game. And for us in the US, it’s late. So, don’t feel like you need to be in for all 8 hours. Maybe just do some live betting for an hour or two to build some bankroll.
One thing I won’t be doing is market analyses like usual, because market info is usually hard to come by since it’s all underground. If you want to learn more about that, do watch “Caught Out” on Netflix.
However, this year I’m fortunate enough to actually make it to India to catch some matches in person. I’ll be attending Australia-Afghanistan on November 7th, one of the semfinals on November 15th, and finally the Final on November 19th, so be sure to check out both the @BETTREdge and @LayingtheField social media accounts for reports on those.
I hope you have a great tournament and are able to fit it in with all the other sports. Who knows? It might end up being your most profitable 😉.
If you have any questions, be sure to DM me on social media, and be sure to follow us on Twitter/X or Instagram @BETTREdge!
Best of luck!
