Let’s discuss cricket formats. Cricket is one of the west’s oldest sports. Quintessentially English, it is known as a gentleman’s game and progresses at a leisurely pace over a number of days with tea breaks and big white floppy hats.
Not anymore, however. Cricket, like many other things, has been radically modernised to fit in with our current need for fast, immediate action. Enter the T20 format
T20 Cricket – Today’s Answer to Long, Boring Matches
T20 cricket is basically a whole cricket match condensed into an afternoon. Each team has only 20 overs in which to score as many runs as they can, after which it is the other teams turn to bat.
There are no tea breaks, and the matches are known for their rowdy atmosphere with loud music and beverages on tap.
Betting on T20 cricket is quite a different ball game to betting on test cricket or even ODI. The main reason for this is that the teams are not necessarily made up of players from one country.
Each team is allowed to buy players from anywhere in the world, which creates a melting pot of a team.
Placing bets therefore, requires one to know each member individually, their strengths and weaknesses and how they compare to other players on other teams.
ODI Cricket – The Middle Ground
ODI, which stands for One Day International is kind of a middle ground between test cricket and T20.
Played over one day as the name suggests, it involves international teams which are made up of players from the particular country.
Certain teams are known to be stronger than others, so when it comes to betting on this format a good knowledge of the actual teams is more essential than the individual players.
Most Australian betting sites available here offer betting on ODI’s, as most Australian punters follow them quite closely.
Test Cricket – What Your Granddad Used to Play
Test cricket would be instantly recognizable by your cricket playing great grandfather, who is probably turning in his grave at the thought of T20.
It is a long, drawn out process which usually takes five days to complete with each team taking turns to bat and bowl a number of times.
The World Cup is played in this format, which is why it takes so long to conclude.
Betting on test cricket is best done as the game is played; slowly and with much thought. Most sites will allow you to change your bets during a match although there will be time constraints on this allowance.
As with ODI, you should get to know the teams and their strengths and weaknesses against each other. And example of this is how England or Australia invariably beat South Africa in the final game, although South Africa may have played incredibly well up to that point.
Knowing how pitches affect the game, and how they degenerate as the five days goes on plays as much of a part in profitable betting on test cricket as knowing the teams.
In the sub-continent countries such as India, the pitches are slow and get progressively slower as the game goes on. This can make very good batsmen who can only play on fast pitches much less useful at the end of the game than the beginning.
Know Your Game
Betting on each of the different types of cricket formats boils down to knowing your game. For beginners, I recommend that you start with one type and really get to know it before trying out the others.
T20 is a great start as it is fun, and involves most of the international players.