What are the advantages to betting on cricket compared to another team sports?

There are so many variables to get to grips with that, once you do, you can exploit and find a betting edge. The number of different formats, for a start. We’re at five and counting after the introduction of The Hundred in the English summer of 2021. And there are advantages to each of them.

Test cricket, for example. In-play wagering is made much easier because if you’re someone who has watched the game for a long time you will instinctively have a feel for the rhythm of the format. To that end, it is written into the rules when batting will be easier or harder because of the new ball at the start of the innings and 80 overs later.

It is a relatively easy task to apply that knowledge to shorting a team’s runs just before the second new ball. Or going long after the first 15 or so when the ball has been swinging.

T20 is similar because of the powerplay overs. We know when runs are going to come fast and slow. And you can bet accordingly.

Which format do you find easiest and hardest to bet on match-winner pre-match?

I think T20 is a format which, perhaps, you can be a little free and easy with pre-match. It is far from a mug strategy to be betting on the outsider for the majority. And I have a rule not to bet any team at 1.6 or lower unless they are one of the ‘great’ T20 sides like a Super Kings or Scorchers. A team really has to have shown its class over a good study period for me to get involved at such prices.

Post toss, T20 also offers big value because we have seen significant toss biases all over the world (the recent T20 World Cup for example) and the markets were slow to catch on. Often you can marry a toss bias with a team bias.

Over the years we have seen teams who are great at chasing but not so hot at defending. Sydney Sixers were poor at defending for a long time but have got better.

I do have a strong view that Test cricket is not one to play without knowing who bats first. There is evidence that runmaking is getting tougher because batting techniques have eroded with the rise of the white ball.

And when we so often see mismatches in Test cricket, largely because of conditions outrageously favouring the home team, you kind of need something to hang your hat on for an outsider. And that is scoreboard pressure and a wearing fourth- or fifth-day pitch. On the latter point, it still amazes me how often the markets underestimate how hard it is to bat on the fifth day.

What are the most important factors you consider in Test Matches?

Pitch. Pitch. Pitch. There’s nothing worse than not having a good study period to fall back on for what a surface might do. The fifth Ashes Test at Hobart is an example. There was evidence at Test and first-class level that it was either a road or a terror track.

That’s horrible for punters because we really should be trying to run through the game in our head, looking at the style of batters and bowlers on show based on what the wicket has and hasn’t done.

Head-to-heads are more important in Tests than most. Not because it is vital to know how England did in India in the 1990s but because it reasserts stereotypes that are so important.

English, South Africa, Australian teams go to Asia and struggle because the pitches are alien. And by and large the same is true for the reverse fixture. Why? Because they just have less experience in handling those conditions.

Most cricket tipsters tend to combine the use of hard data with gut instinct and/or opinion. But you’re just pretty much about the data and don’t use much opinion. Is that a fair assessment?

I think so. Although I never used to be that into data. I was an ‘eye’ punter. I watched players very carefully, working out techniques and betting accordingly. Now I try to combine that with statistics which suggest a player is value to top score or take most wickets.

I made the switch because in this social media age you were always likely to come across someone who could explode your argument about why so and so playing round his front pad made him a walking wicket with an obscure but mind-blowing stat about his record on match-ups against individual bowlers.

You really have to be across so much of the data these days. And the best news is that if you can get your hands on more of it and still judge players, there are very strong edges to be found.

History of Sharjah Cricket Stadium

Sharjah Cricket Stadium is the oldest venue being used at the 2021 T20 World Cup. It opened in the early 1980s and hosted its first international match during the 1984 Asia Cup.

Apart from a quiet period from 2003 to 2010, it has been a venue for international cricket ever since. In the last decade, both Pakistan and Afghanistan have used Sharjah as a home ground when they have been unable to play in their own country.

Today it holds the world record for most ODIs at a single stadium (240). In recent years, Sharjah has also hosted the T10 cricket league and the final of the 2018 Blind Cricket World Cup.

Stadium characteristics

The Sharjah Cricket Stadium has been expanded over the years and can hold up to 27,000 spectators. Crowds have often been good thanks to the large Asian expat community in the UAE.

Thanks to its world-class floodlights, the Sheikh Zayed Stadium can host day-night cricket. In fact, seven of the 11 T20I World Cup matches here will be day-night games.

Games hosted at Sharjah Cricket Stadium

The last T20I in Sharjah was more than three years ago in February 2018, when Afghanistan completed a 2-0 series win over Zimbabwe. Afghanistan are the only international team to have played more than five T20Is in Sharjah.

Away from international cricket, the Sharjah Cricket Stadium was used for six matches in the 2014 IPL when India was holding political elections and didn’t want the IPL to be a distraction.

It also hosted 12 matches in the 2020 IPL, when the tournament was moved outside India because of Covid-19. Those 12 games were often high scoring, with 8/12 teams batting first making 170 or more.

Again because of Covid, Sharjah was the venue for 10 matches in the 2021 IPL that has just finished. Those 2021 fixtures were generally low scoring. Only three of the 10 teams batting first made 140 or more.