ENG vs WI Test Day match prediction 26 Jul 2020

England had the upper hand at stumps on Day 2, with the West Indies batsman struggling at 137/6 in reply to the hosts’ 369-run innings, trailing by 232 runs. As things stand, the Test is going one way - an England win, but we still cannot write-off the Windies, can we? There are still three days of cricket left and the tides can turn either way, so we cannot afford to miss out on the action. Just like we cannot dare to overlook the best three markets offered by betting sites as we approach Day 3 of the Third Test at Old Trafford, Manchester.

Betting Tips

Well, don’t put the blame on me, I’ve backed up the past records to draw a conclusion. We all know that Jason Holder is one of the best all-rounders in Test cricket at the moment, but his batting skills do take a dip in overseas matches. In the 17 away matches he’s played, Holder has scored just 578 runs at an average of just 21.40, while the same numbers rocket up to 42.20 at home. On the other hand, there have been only four instances where the player has managed to score north of 42, while surely tells us a tale. If that’s not enough, I'll give you more reasons to take up the bet.

Even though two out of Jason Holder’s three centuries have been scored against the Three Lions, each of them were at home - North Sound and Bridgetown. Relatively, his exploits in the United Kingdom have been far more pathetic, with him not even scoring a fifty, his best score being 43 - the only time he scored over 42 runs in an innings. His overall average playing in England 20.27, having piled up just 166 runs in six matches. With still 19 runs needed in the opening hour of Third day’s play, this bet is as secured as it can get.

If the above bet was looking like a risk worth taking, this one is a no-brainer and I’m not even kidding. To make it more convincing, I am going to take similar parameters as we’ve done for the above one. Even though Shane Dowrich’s home record has been inspiring, he never managed to emulate the same on the road, having scored just 461 runs in 14 matches away from home at a humble average of 20.95 runs per innings, which includes just six scores (in 26 innings) above 22 runs. Well, we’ve got more.

Dowrich’s record against England is more respectable, with him scoring 319 runs in nine matches against them at an average of 24.53 runs per innings. But that again takes a beating when he visits Europe, with the rate dropping to a mere 12.77, having amassed just 117 runs in six matches. Moreover, in the last Test match at the same venue (Old Trafford), the batsman failed to score a single run in both the innings combined. With the batsman prone to vulnerability in English conditions, chances are he might get out in the opening session, making this bet a potential winner.

This might come apparently as a contradiction to what I’ve been saying in the last two cases, but what we have seen on Day 2 and the way West Indies have ended last evening, we ought to take this bet a bit more seriously. With 47.1 overs bowled, the visitors have got almost eight overs, at the end of which they need to get past the 158-run mark, or in other words, score 22 runs. Technically, the Windies need to score just 2.75 runs to get home and win us some easy money, which looks quite possible at the moment, with the tail yet to face the heat.

On the other hand, the opening hour might have been torturous for batsmen, but there’s no doubt runs have also been scored a lot. For the record, England managed to score 27 runs in the opening eight overs on Saturday at a rate of 3.37 runs per over. On the other hand, the West Indies batsmen have shown an aggressive approach towards the end of Day 2, with their run rate at 2.9 runs per innings at the end of the day. If they manage to maintain the same rate, the bet is ours. Meanwhile, the overnight batsmen have scored a whopping 36 runs in the last eight overs on Day 2 at a rate of 4.5 per innings, which makes it clear that the market is worth investing.