Fans of the Ashes betting have a good one to look forward to here in the Fifth Test as Australia face England for the last time in this Series. We’re at Hobart for it. And remember it’s a day-night Test.
In addition to the team news, head-to-head record, pitch report and important stats, we also have the top Australia vs England betting tips coming up next.
So, everything you need to know before the action gets underway in Sydney. If you want the best live cricket satta rates for the game, keep reading.
The best cricket betting tips are up next ahead of the Fifth and final Ashes Test at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart.
It’s been a very one-sided Series so far but it provides an excellent opportunity for England to gain some more respect after drawing the last one. I think the draw is very much on here and I’ll explain why I say that.
I also have the usual toss winner prediction and a good tip on an in-form and very reliable batsman to top score for Australia in the first innings.
One of the hardest things about being a Test match captain is knowing when to declare.
Declare too early and you give the opposition enough time to chase a score while not having enough runs on the board to defend. Declare too late and you don’t give your bowlers enough time to take 10 wickets.
And in the last Test, it was the latter.
Pat Cummins had more than enough runs on the board but left it too late and we all know what happened next.
With just one wicket left to take, Australia ran out of time as James Anderson and Stuart Broad saw out the final few balls to secure a creditable draw. Most captains err on the side of caution and Cummins certainly wasn’t the first skipper to make that mistake.
He also complained that the weather forecasts made him think he had a little more time left in the game than he did before unexpected rain robbed him of a few overs. But before all that, Usman Khawaja, making his debut in the Series, scored 137 and 101 not out in a scintillating display of batting.
Scott Boland continued to impress with seven wickets in the game.
Team News
It would have been just about the harshest decision ever seen in Test cricket to have dropped Khawaja from the side with Travis Head returning after getting Covid.
Khawaja does keep his place but not in the number five spot where he scored all those runs last time out.
Instead they dropped Marcus Harris, who scored just one fifty in four matches, meaning Khawaja will open in his place. Head will bat in his usual position at five.
Mitchell Starc insists he doesn’t want to be rested. Quite right. He is by the way the only fast bowler from either side to have played all four Tests so far.
Boland is likely to keep his place after doing so well meaning Josh Hazlewood won’t be rushed back from injury.
Player to Watch: Nathan Lyon
The thing about Nathan Lyon is that sometimes you don’t notice him so much.
He’s not an exuberant over-the-top showman like say Shane Warne or an all-smiles nice guy like Muttiah Muralitharan.
But don’t be fooled. He’s one of the most competitive bowlers in the world and just loves taking wickets.
And he’s taken plenty already despite not being a match-winner per se in any of the four Tests so far. His 16 wickets in the Series are more than anyone else has managed and he’s gone at just 2.31 an over.
He loves playing day-night Tests and has an excellent record in them. Betway makes him 2.75 to take three or more first-innings wickets.
Losing an Ashes series as England captain is bad enough. Losing it 5-0 is any skipper’s idea of a nightmare.
Joe Root has avoided that and can thank the likes of Zak Crawley, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes and also Jack Leach for seeing off as many balls as they did in that fourth innings to secure a draw.
Earlier Bairstow hit England’s only century of the Series so far and Stuart Broad took five first innings wickets.
This isn’t a great England side and they were probably somewhat fortunate to escape with the draw but at least they showed something they hadn’t really shown up to this point: fight and heart.
Avoiding defeat here would mean a scoreline of 3-0 or even 3-1 looks a lot better than 4-0.
Team News
Jos Buttler has gone home with an injury. It may just be a blessing in disguise because it meant Egland didn’t have to drop him after what has been a miserable tour for him.
Bairstow and Stokes were two of England’s heroes with the bat in that drawn Fourth Test so it’s pretty unlucky that both are suffering from injuries.
Bairstow definitely won’t be keeping wicket and Stokes won’t bowl but they may still both play as specialist batsmen. Given the absence of anyone else they can trust, it may be the best option.
It means Sam Billings, a specialist keeper, should make his Test debut; Bairstow was playing as a specialist batsman anyway.
It does however mean that England will be a bowler down with Stokes not able to bowl.
What they might do is move someone like Malan up the order, drop Hameed and bring in Ollie Robinson so they end up paying five specialist bowlers.
Player to Watch: Stuart Broad
Stuart Broad isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. He’s a bit moody, thinks every time he hits the batsman’s pads it’s plumb LBW and isn’t afraid to speak his mind about just about anything. From criticising his own team’s batsman to telling the Selectors he should be picked for every game.
But then again, a cricketer doesn’t need to be extremely likeable and a nice guy to be an excellent player.
And an excellent player he is. With 531 wickets, he’s the sixth-highest wicket-taker of all time and has competed in 151 Tests.
Who knows if this could be his last?
He clearly doesn’t like training so hard only to not be selected for whatever reason and given he doesn’t play white-ball cricket for England anymore, may just decide he’s had enough.
If that’s it, England will have lost a tall, skilful fast bowler who has won them dozens of matches and they may have to wait a while till they find another one like him.
It’s 3.6 with Betway he’s England’s top wicket-taker in the first innings.
Good luck trying to work out what sort of wicket we’re going to get at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart. In 2015 Australia scored 583 here but then they were all out for 85 a year later against South Africa.
But here’s what we do know. It’s a day-night Test and the pink ball swings prodigiously at the beginning so it’s going to be extremely tough for the openers. Then after about 12 overs, it becomes easier to bat and then it’s once again advantage to the bowlers when it gets dark.
So bear all that in mind when betting in Live Betting.
Australia vs England Head-to-Head
Let’s look at the Australia v England head-to-head. It’s now 150 wins for Australia to England’s 110, after another Aussie win in Melbourne for the Aussies.
There have been 95 draws. Worryingly for England, Australia’s record at home gets better and better: they’ve now won 51% of their Tests when at home to ‘the Poms’.
Australia vs England Toss Prediction
Time to look at the Australia vs England toss winner statistics. Australia edged one ahead in the Fourth Test in what is surely the closest toss contest in history. Time for England to hit back and level things up again.
There’s no doubt about who is the better side and you certainly don’t want to be backing England. At any price. But at far bigger odds than Australia’s 1.45, you can back the draw at 4.25.
Three reasons why that might be the way to go.
England seriously improved with the bat last time out and assuming Stokes and Bairstow are fit, they will have learnt a lot about batting time out in Australia.
There’s rain forecast for Days One and Two so we could lose quite a few overs.
Three: the fact the pink ball swings for less time means there will be more periods when batsmen don’t have to worry about swing. If the openers are still there after an hour or so it could be hard work for the bowlers.
You can hope for a bigger live betting price on Australia but pre-match, the draw looks the best bet.
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Remembering what we said about it being hard for openers, they’re all worth avoiding as a top batsman bet.
So in the case of Australia, that means excluding the in-form Khawaja and David Warner.
Steve Smith has had quite a quiet series by his standards and is ‘only’ the seventh-highest scorer in the Series so far across both teams when he was favourite before it started to be top scorer.
Labuschagne, the top scorer across both sides, is to be respected but he’s only 4.85.
At 9.76 you can back the returning Travis Head, who will bat at a good spot at five, is the fourth-highest run-scorer across both sides despite playing a game less and is available at excellent odds.
Australia vs England fun statistics
Time to round things off with some fun facts ahead of the game.
Despite England’s troubles and not scoring a century, Joe Root (277) is only 11 runs off Labuschagne for the Series.
Stokes and Travis Head are the only players to have hit more than three sixes this Series. They each have four.
Scott Boland (16 wickets) is only two off top bowler Nathan Lyon (18) despite only playing two matches.
