Author: Online Betting Pro

I am a punter that loves to follow the horse both in Australia and the United Kingdom. I enjoy writing about sports betting and also casino, poker and bingo. In my spare time I like to keep fit by playing football and going for long bike rides. I also like to travel the world and see amazing place s and meet wonderful people along the way.

Cricket World Cup: Day 7 Preview

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Crunch game at the World Cup today with New Zealand hosting England in a Wellington day-nighter.  Fans are craving a close game and this one has all the trappings of being so.

The Three Big Questions

Is Adam Milne New Zealand’s best third seam option?

New Zealand are going with an unchanged lineup for today’s match which means Adam Milne will again keep Kyle Mills out (and to a lesser extent Mitchell McClenaghan).  Milne shades the only contentious position presumably because of his extra pace.  The English batsman have struggled against other express quicks such as Mitchell Starc and Johnson over the past few weeks, and the Black Caps are obviously keen to keep testing their appetite for the quick, short stuff.  Milne’s returns have been modest so far – 2/56 and 0/32 at an economy of 5.17 runs per over.  But, in the eye of the New Zealand selectors, the RPO is clearly offset by the wicket-taking threat.  Mills would contain with his accurate cross seamers gripping on the Westpac surface, without any real danger.  Milne’s the right call.

When will Eoin Morgan return to form?

He has to doesn’t he.  How long can someone be “due” without ever scoring runs?  Morgan is providing the English journalists with an almighty angle for their pre-match reporting, and 4 ducks in 5 matches is the type of banter club players love (something about an Audi for a few ducks in a row).  Morgan is quality though; he will jump at the chance of a change of scenery and we expect the drought to end today.  We would bat him at 6 though and let James Taylor occupy 5.  This will give Taylor more time in the middle, while also handing the important closing role to Morgan with less pressure on him the score runs.

Is the World Cup too long?  Will we run out of questions to answer in our daily previews? 

Yes and yes.

Today’s Match

New Zealand v England, Wellington Regional Stadium (Wellington – partly cloudy), starts 2:00pm local time

New Zealand – $1.51

England – $2.56

New Zealand are riding high on a wave of game generated momentum and public admiration, and now face a humiliated England side who were a bit gun-shy in their World Cup opener in Melbourne.  While the Black Caps are strong favourites at the bookies, we think this will be considerably closer than the odds suggest.  Why?  Because New Zealand haven’t faced quality opening bowlers for some time.  Having time and time again dined out on Sri Lanka and Pakistan military medium’s and only had a small dose of imperious quicks when they warmed up against South Africa, they now face Stuart Broad and James Anderson.  Two quality seamers with equally promising backups in Steven Finn and Chris Woakes. Eoin Morgan’s due too (even though he’s battling the captaincy curse).

New Zealand have name an unchanged side from the one that has come out on top in their first two efforts.  They need to shake it off, shake it off the poor chase they nearly threw away of just 160 odd against Scotland three days ago.  We’re anxious for New Zealand in this one.

Today’s Bet

We like outsiders, so think about lumping on England on a straight head to head here.  If you’re really confident, back England win by 50 Runs or 6-10 Wickets at $7.00.  If you need a player to back, pick Joe Root to top score at $5.50 (he averages 58.4 against NZ in 7 ODI’s).

Odds from Palmerbet.

Europa League Preview 19th February

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After the opening matches in the last 16 of the Champions League, attention switches to the Europa League with Everton, Liverpool, Spurs and Celtic in action on Thursday.

24 teams have battled through the group stages to reach the last 32 and have now been joined by the Champions League “failures”. Chelsea won the trophy in 2013 after being eliminated at the group stage and Liverpool will try to emulate them this season.

Brendan Rodgers has got to prioritise the Premier League, FA Cup and this competition but there are excellent reasons to pursue all three. Their recent victory over Tottenham revived hopes of a top four finish while the Europa League winners now qualify for the Champions League. Having missed out on a Capital One Cup final, the club are intent on providing Steven Gerrard with a grandstand finish in the FA Cup.

They face Besiktas in the first leg at Anfield with the familiar figure of Demba Ba returning to the scene of his breakaway goal for Chelsea that all but ended Liverpool’s title charge last season. Besiktas finished above Tottenham in their group and should provide the Reds with a tough test, especially if Rodgers fields a weakened team. Daniel Sturridge is certain to be involved at some stage but I don’t expect this to be plain sailing for Liverpool.

Roberto Martinez has managed to end Everton’s miserable run of form in recent weeks, largely by playing defensive football. They came within moments of keeping a fourth consecutive clean sheet against Chelsea having shut out Liverpool. They will surely adopt a similar policy when they travel to Young Boys, a dangerous opponent with seven consecutive European wins. Their impressive group form included a 2-0 win against Napoli and they could prove too good for the Toffees with home advantage.

Tottenham are at home to Fiorentina, a side that includes Micah Richards, Alberto Aquilani and Mohamed Salah. The latter has already opened his account since joining the Italian side from Chelsea in January. They beat Sassuolo 3-1 on Saturday and will give Mauricio Pochettino’s side plenty to think about here. However, Fiorentina have only kept one clean sheet in twelve and Spurs have enough fire power to gain a first leg advantage.

Celtic face Roberto Mancini’s Inter Milan at Celtic Park and will need to grab a lead if they are to have any chance of progressing. They won their eighth successive match when beating St Johnstone on Saturday while Inter have also improved recently on the domestic front. They are still languishing in mid-table and struggled through the group phase but could have enough class to win away from home.

Young Boys to beat Everton @19-10 Totesport, Betfred

Inter Milan to beat Celtic @31-20 BetVictor

Liverpool v Besiktas DRAW @16-5 BetVictor

Tottenham to beat Fiorentina @5-4 Bet365

Cricket World Cup: Day 6 Recap

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Nelson delivered the closest game of the Cricket World Cup thus far courtesy of the Zimbabwe and UAE team’s collective batting efforts.  While the bowling and fielding on display wasn’t always of the highest quality, the decent turns at bat provided some tense times for both sets of fans in an exiting finish.  Check out who did what below.

Day 6 Results

Zimbabwe v UAE

UAE got straight back on the horse of Cricket World Cup’s today with a handy first up batting effort against a confident Zimbabwe side that nearly proved enough to sneak a second World Cup win.  Playing nice and straight initially, and holding wickets for the final assault, the UAE found an effective way of taking advantage of their opponents strangling field placements by manipulating the field and exploiting some of the smaller Saxton Oval boundaries.  The big runs were made by Shaiman Anwar and Khurram Khan, but coach, Aaqib Javed, will rue the fact that no one went on to an 80 or hundred.

Zimbabwe may have been ragged in the field but with bat in hand it was a different story.  The big chase could have proved difficult, with the regular wickets stifling threatening to compound them to an upset, but at no stage did the Africans panic.  Instead each new batsman contributed to the run rate and aptly supported the man in.  Contributions from most of the side, save for Masakadza and Mire, eventually got them home by four wickets with a couple of overs to spare.

This match was further evidence of the closing gap between test sides and associate nations.  Remember, just a few days ago Zimbabwe scared South Africa with a strong showing.  Here, they were almost on the receiving end of a similar scare.  It’s great for the Cricket World Cup.

Zimbabwe 286 for 6 (Williams 76, Taylor 47) beat UAE 285 for 7 (Anwar 67, Khurram 45, Chatara 3-42) by 4 wickets

Cricket World Cup: Day 6 Preview

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Welcome to Day 6.  An early start in Nelson for a match featuring two of the Cricket World Cup underdogs.

The Three Big (Cricket World Cup Thus Far) Questions

Is Net Run Rate that important? 

New Zealand almost butchered an easy run-chase against Scotland the other day all in the pursuit of a superior Net Run Rate (NRR).  As the New Zealand public panic and critics slam their recklessness the New Zealanders didn’t care less.  You see, wickets lost is not used in the calculations of NRR.  Simply, the runs scored is divided by the overs faced and subtracted from the runs conceded divided by the overs bowled.  The Black Caps now have a health NRR of 2.62.  That’s important because if teams are on equal points after the round robin series, NRR will separate them.  The top four teams play off against each other in a traditional 1 v 4 scenario so it’s understandable NZ want to consider all factors.

Which team is better with their backs against the wall?  West Indies or Pakistan?

Write either of them off at your peril.  Both Pakistan and the West Indies play better without expectation.  They can relax, they can entertain, they can play naturally; aggressively.  Yes, both have suffered embarrassing defeats in their first games, but the tournaments a long one, they can atone for this in the latter more important stages.  Pakistan were semi-finalists in this tournament on 2011 and took out the Twenty20 World’s in 2009 in similar circumstances.  West Indies too have enjoyed big tournament wins as recently as 2012 (World Twenty20).

Is Duckworth-Lewis ever going to be a factor?  Is this World Cup being played in Qatar?

Certainly the lack of rain has been a pleasing factor of the first week of action.  Messrs Duckworth and Lewis left to work on even more complex algorithms, rather than meddle in international cricket. It probably won’t last forever mind you with Brisbane expecting showers for Michael Clarke’s return to action against Bangladesh on Saturday.

Today’s Match

UAE v Zimbabwe, Saxton Oval (Nelson – mostly sunny), starts 11:00am local time

Zimbabwe – $1.14

UAE – $5.75

Zimbabwe will take great confidence from their performance against South Africa into this one where they have been given the tag of strong favourites.  Zimbabwe were excellent in 70-80 overs against South Africa and will be looking to extrapolate that out to a complete performance today.  Not that this one’s expected to go 100 overs.

UAE are likely to struggle in their first Cricket World Cup since 1996.  They have been set-up in Napier fine tuning their games against club cricketers, but reports are they have struggled to beat Hawke’s Bay’s best club players in a series of one-daters.  That’s a worry.

Today’s Bet

Elton Chigumbura – Man of the Match – $11.00

Odds from Centrebet.

Cricket World Cup: Day 5 Recap

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We were way off the mark predicting a win for Bangladesh.  Sorry.  Afghanistan’s debut in the Cricket World Cup didn’t go to plan against a classy Bangladesh outfit in day five’s only game.

Day 5 Results

Afghanistan v Bangladesh

The two most important players to Bangladesh Cricket World Cup chances both delivered in their opening effort against Afghanistan.  Mushfiqur and Shakib both broke the mould of twenties to combine for a partnership of 114, and set their opponents a demanding total of 267.  The top-order’s earlier efforts lacked momentum as Afghanistan made a good fist of bowling first after Bangladesh opted to bat.  Those efforts were overturned, however, after the captain and former captain entered the fray.  Shakib in particular justified his ranking as the world’s top ranked ODI all-rounder with an entertaining 63.

Afghanistan can play, but when they lost wickets in each of the first three overs the writing was on the wall.  Mashrafe Mortaza did most of the damage.  He took 3-20, and Afghanistan mustered just 162; bundled out in the 43rd over.

Bangladesh deserved to be buoyed by their enterprising opening in a mac that could have been trickier than they made it.  They’ll back themselves to snap up a quarter-final spot now and plausibly push for an upset once there.  Afghanistan can look forward to games against Scotland and Australia (lol) as the games to target in order to achieve a first Cricket World Cup win.

Bangladesh 267 (Mushfiqur 71, Shakib 63, Shapoor 2-20) beat Afghanistan 162 (Nabi 44, Mashrafe 3-20) by 105 runs

Golf: Northern Trust Open Preview

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A bunker in the middle of the green!  Courses are getting pretty freaky to contend with technology these days – although the 6th at Riviera has been around since 1927.  The 6th is one of the many challenges at Riviera, along with tight fairways and steep catchment areas on the wrong side of greens, that will stop players going Pebble Beach low at the Northern Trust Open this week.

Let’s look at the tournament in more detail:

The Course

“Hogan’s Alley”, or the Riviera Country Club as it’s more widely known is a 7,349 yard par 71 course just out of Los Angeles.  Nicknamed after Ben Hogan after he won three times in an 18 month span, the course is home to the unusual site of a bunker nestled in the middle of the green on the par 3 6th.  It’s also home to very drivable number 10th hole.  A par 4 that is sure to see some birdies at this weeks Northern Trust Open.

The Sound Bites

“I’m just so excited about what’s next,” – Brandt Snedeker said after winning at Pebble Beach.  Many are predicting big things for Sneds after the impressive win.  He’s at $23.00 to go back to back.

“Right now it doesn’t matter what I shoot, doesn’t matter if I win the tournament this week or if I lose it with a three-putt, whatever it is. It’s fun. I’m playing golf for a living. It’s fun. And my kids, my wife are more important” – Bubba Watson doesn’t see any pressure coming in as defending champion.

The Defending Champion

Bubba Watson provided one of the best close outs in recent times last year when he shot 64-64 over the weekend to win by two.  The quirky left hander came from four back with a blistering finish that showed off his creative short game and unflappable steel down the stretch.  It broke a torrid drought without a win and set him up on his way to Masters glory.  Dustin Johnson finished second.

The Contenders*

Jimmy Walker – $17.00

Bubba Watson – $13.00

Sergio Garcia – $31.00

Jordan Spieth – $13.00

Dustin Johnson – $13.00

Charlie Beljan – $81.00

Nick Watney – $31.00

*AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am odds courtesy of Bet365 Australia.

The Winner

We’ve gone with the regular guys again this week but also added a couple of well placed smokeys.  Dustin Johnson looks to be shaking off the rust and finding some decent from, and buoyed by last years finish here might do okay.  But we like the look of Beljan; third last week and a good record at Riviera, and Watney; coming into some nice form and having got a good view of Snedeker’s finish last week.  We like Watney.