ENGLAND v SRI LANKA: Our cricket tipster The Edge previews Wednesday’s first T20 between ENGLAND v SRI LANKA with a recommended BETDAQ bet.

MATCH OVERVIEW:

England are back in T20 action on Wednesday as they welcome Sri Lanka for a white ball tour. The hosts are strong favourites on BETDAQ Betting Exchange to win, and anything bar an impressive win will pile more questions on the England team. Although it’s a completely different format, it’s fair to say that England are under a little bit of pressure after the New Zealand Test series. You look at the headlines and see “England’s priorities don’t make sense” and “the schedule is relentless and players will get burnt out” then you have players complaining they can’t get in the side. Fair to say there’s a lot going on with England at the moment!

Although the Test side were comfortably beaten against New Zealand, and white ball side have been very strong for a while now. Although the ECB “rested” a number of players for the New Zealand Test series, when you look at the English squad in general you can they are much more suited to the white ball format at the moment. Jos Buttler was rested against New Zealand and while he is a very talented Test player, he’s a match winner in the T20 format. We can expect them to opening the batting here with Jason Roy, although match winner. When you look through the batting order, you see players who can win games on their own all the way down for England. They are incredibly strong.

It’s not unfair to say Sri Lanka are going through a tough spell at the moment. Over the last number of years they have lost some key players through age, and they just haven’t got the talent to fill the holes yet. They are definitely going through a re-building process and it has been very tough. They are without Angelo Mathews on this tour too, he left the West Indies tour this season with his daughters health condition. It will be interesting to see how Sri Lanka do against this top class England side, but you’d have to expect them to come up short.

WEATHER AND PITCH WATCH:

We start the series in Cardiff where we’ll have back-to-back games with the second T20 coming up quickly tomorrow. We have short straight boundaries at Cardiff, so the players will definitely be looking to go over the bowlers heads. Sometimes we can see a lot of turn in the pitch here, but I doubt England will want that given that will suit Sri Lanka. That could mean we see a very good pitch for batting, which England usually request in the one day format, and we see a lot of runs. You have to go back to May 2019 for the last T20 International here, but we had a high scoring game with England chasing down Pakistan’s 173/6. England chased it with balls to spare and only three wickets down.

RECOMMENDED BET:

It’s hard to see England getting beaten here and you can see why they are 1.33. I wouldn’t want to lay them, and given the weakness with Sri Lanka at the moment we could see a 1.01 train too. England have leaked a few runs in this format of the game though, and if you were a Sri Lanka fan you’d be hoping they can bat first and put a score on the board to put pressure on England. Otherwise it looks like one way traffic. I like England at 1.33, but I like some other bets too. England most sixes at 1.44 and Eoin Morgan Top England Runscorer at 5.5. He really likes batting here so I can’t put anyone off taking the 5.5, however sometimes he does come in too low down the order so beware of that. England have so many six hitters here the 1.44 jumps off the page compared to the Sri Lankan side and that will be my best bet.

The Edge Says:
Two points win England Most Sixes at 1.44 with BETDAQ Betting Exchange

View the market here -> http://bit.ly/BDQEngSri

IN-RUNNING STRATEGY:

As this is the first game of the series, I will be keeping my in-running plans pretty open and see how the play develops. I feel England will go very well with the bat, so if they bat first I’ll be keen to support them. I’m also looking forward to seeing how Sri Lanka cope with the England bowlers – you’d have to say England are stronger with the bat, and if Sri Lanka can’t score big runs off the England bowling then they have little chance of winning a game here. My main in-running trading plan is to get on England when they are batting, as I said above, the only way I see England trading higher is if Sri Lanka bat first and post a pretty big score – which is possible given the England bowling – but you have to say Sri Lanka haven’t been a batting powerhouse for a while now and their squad looks a little weak.