Betting.Betfair

Competition: Turkish Super League
Kick-Off Time: February 13 17:00

Basic Stats


League Position: 13                                               5   
Current Form:    LLDDDL                                           DWLWWW         

Recent Head-To-Head (League only) 0-4 0-0 0-1 1-3 0-1

Over/Under 2.5 Goals this season (20 matches)                     

                        60/40                                     45/55

Super Stats:

•    Ankaragucu haven’t beaten Besiktas in their last 19 matches in all competitions
•    Besiktas have only conceded one goal against Ankaragucu in their last six matches
•    Ankaragucu have the third worst home form in the Turkish Super League
•    No player in the Turkish league is deadlier from the spot than Besiktas’ Guti (pictured), who has scored five of his six goals from the penalty spot this season. His   
        team-mate Bobo Devson is joint 8th top scorer in the league with seven goals.

In-Play Stats

•    No side in the Turkish League has scored more goals (9) between the 61st and 7th minutes than Ankaragucu; Besiktas are joint-second with 8.
•    Every time Besiktas have scored the first goal of the match in the league this season, they’ve gone on to win the game.

Liverpool are a team on the up and look set for a Top Six finish when a relegation battle looked a more likely scenario earlier on in the season. But the Betfair Contrarian is pushing the boat out even more and predicting a Champions League spot for the Reds...

The Betfair Contrarian: Why Liverpool will finish in the top four

Four weeks ago, the Contrarian ignored Kenny Dalglish's losses to Manchester United and Blackpool in his first two games back in charge at Anfield to recommend backing Liverpool to finish in the top six at 3.9. Five matches and 13 points later, the Reds are in to 1.42 in that market and progressing at an even faster rate than the notorious champion of the underdog expected. So swiftly in fact, that he is now tipping them to qualify for the Champions League at 7.0. Here's why...

The gap is only six points...

A team six points behind the Premier League leaders at this point in the season having played a game more might have their title credentials doubted - Manchester City find themselves in a similar position now - but it's not a decisive margin in the battle for a top-four finish, as has been proven frequently in recent campaigns. Arsenal recovered a four-point deficit with just four left to play when battling with Tottenham in 2005-06, while they trailed Aston Villa by seven points on this date two years ago. Liverpool also have experience of chasing, having clawed their way back from seventh at the start of February 2008 to eventually end up a whopping 11 points clear of fifth-placed Everton.

...and they have already recovered six

The greatest proof that Liverpool have nothing to fear and plenty of time to make up the ground required with a dozen fixtures remaining is that in their last four outings alone they have already recovered six points, having been 12 points shy of the Champions League positions following their 2-2 draw with Everton at Anfield on January 16.

Liverpool have an undaunting run-in

Chelsea have a game in hand on Liverpool but there's no guarantee that they'll pick up any points against table-topping Manchester United, who they still have to face twice. Tottenham have a game in hand too, however the worry for them is that just one of their final 13 matches is against a club placed between eighth and 14th, the ones likely to have the least to play for in the closing weeks, and therefore more favourable opponents than those fighting relegation, of which Spurs clash with seven to Liverpool's four. Encouragingly, Dalglish's side meet only four of the ten teams that have already beaten them in their closing 12 ties, and each of those encounters takes place at Anfield.

The Suarez and Carroll partnership is still to come

Liverpool defeated two top-half Premier League sides last week without departed top goalscorer Fernando Torres and big-money January acquisitions Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll in the starting line-up. A key reason for that success is the defensive improvement under Dalglish, with four successive clean sheets obtained, and Raul Meireles in form, but it begs the question that if they can achieve so much without a proven goal-getter, how much better will they get with two? Carroll's price tag can be questioned, yet he has scored more goals this season than any top-flight player besides Dimitar Berbatov and Carlos Tevez. This despite an injury absence and playing for a promoted team, while Suarez netted 49 times for Ajax last year, showing it was no fluke by delivering at the World Cup too.

They did the double over Chelsea

How about this for a promising omen? Since Roman Abramovich took over at Chelsea in 2003, rapidly turning them from top-six regulars that never looked capable of finishing first into regular title contenders, Liverpool had only once done the double over the Blues - in 2008-09 - and that was the only one of the first seven seasons of Abramovich's reign in which the Reds outperformed their west London rivals. Last weekend's 1-0 win at Stamford Bridge allowed them to replicate the feat.

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Italy are improving with each Six Nations campaign and, following last year's close contest in Rome, Ralph Ellis wonders why the markets are offering such long odds on an Azzurri triumph at Twickenham.

When it comes to the Six Nations, we all expect Italy to be collecting the wooden spoon. Just to prove my point they are already installed as 1.47 favourites for the dubious honour. It's hardly surprising. It's where they have finished in all but three of the 12 seasons they've been in the competition. And in our minds they're still the new boys in a tournament that goes back, in one way shape or form, through 128 years of sporting history.

But there's a point when any set of boys start to become men. For instance it doesn't seem so long ago that the big cricketing nations were patting the heads of Sri Lanka and telling them to keep trying - only to wake up one morning and discover they'd invented the "pinch hitting" tactic that won them a World Cup. Some 15 years later they are quite rightly 6.0 second favourites to do it again.

As Italy begin their second decade in the Six Nations tournament there are signs that experience is beginning to pay. Ask Ireland, who needed a dramatic late Ronan O'Gara dropped goal to avoid leaving Rome's Stadio Flaminio on the wrong end of a defeat on Saturday afternoon.

Yet despite that promise, Betfair's early market seems to still be writing off Italy as hopeless minnows. England are as short as 1.03 to win at Twickenham on Saturday. And while, after the encouraging victory in The Millenium Stadium, there's no reason to think Martin Johnson's side won't follow that up with another win, there's equally no reason to think it will be easy.

You can get around even money - the spread this morning was between 1.76 and 2.15 - backing Italy with a 22.5 point handicap. That has to be great value, bearing in mind how England struggled to handle the Italian pack in Rome last year when they struggled to a 17-12 victory and couldn't even dominate the forward exchanges while Martin Castrogiovanni was sat in the sin bin. The return this year of talismanic number eight Sergio Parisse will simply make the Italians stronger.

England's forwards coach John Wells is wary of the threat posed by the most experienced scrum in the competition, with an average of 53 caps between them. "Sometimes you have to win ugly," he's told the Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary this morning. "They are extremely dogged and very, very difficult to break down. We always get pilloried when we play them, and then everybody else has the same trouble."

That hardly sounds like a man planning a free flowing, expansive strategy to get Chris Ashton running in half a dozen tries. What it does say is that England are taking the threat posed by the Six Nations "new boys" extremely seriously. Maybe it is time we punters began to do the same.


Five things you might not know about Martin Castrogiovanni

1. Born October 1981 in the Argentine city of Parana, his mum wouldn't let him play the rough sport of rugby so he played basketball for local club Atletico Echague until he was 18 - when he was banned for pushing the referee

2. His grandfather was from Sicily. Within a year of taking up rugby he moved to Italy to play for Ghial Calvisano. He was fast tracked straight into the Italian Six Nations squad

3. The Italian restaurant he owns in Leicester - called Timo - has just opened a new branch

4. He's got a dog called fatty - it's a British bulldog. "He's not fat, I just call him that because it's what people called me"

5. His fiancée Giulia Candiago is a member of the Italian skiing team

For more Six Nations betting articles, go to http://betting.betfair.com/rugby-bet/rugby-union/six-nations-betting/

With 12 nominations, The King's Speech looks all set to dominate the 83rd Academy Awards, and be the big story when we all wake up from our James-Franco-induced-slumber on the morning of Monday February 28. But which gongs is the film most likely to nail? Let us take you by the hand...

Leading Actor: Colin Firth (odds to win 1.06)
Firth looks to have this Oscar banked - making a lovely shiny reserve-bookend for his Golden Globe (and inevitable Bafta) - for two main reasons. First of all, he was playing an actual person from history - it worked wonders in recent ceremonies for Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote, and Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles. That's four of the last six winners, kids. Secondly, we must consider that he was playing a man with an affliction. The Academy absolutely loves that darling.

Best Picture: The King's Speech (1.3)
So if we assume Firth's oscar is as nailed on as, let's say, Jesus on the cross, that may be bad news for the film itself. One needs to go all the way back to 2001 to find the last time that a Best Picture also starred a Best Actor (Russell Crowe and Gladiator since you asked so nicely). This could undoubtedly open the door for Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network, currently second-favourite at 5.0. Indeed, a story about modern-day technology may prove irresistible to the crusty Academy voters in their endless quest to appear down with the kids.

Best Director: Tom Hooper (2.12)
And should the above chain of events come to pass, Tom Hooper would certainly have his work cut out to snag the gong for Best Director, with only four movies not pulling off the classic Best Film/Best Director double in the past 20 years. All this is potentially good news for David Fincher, and his hip story about geeks being all young and ambitious. The betting has him at 2.16 - the tightest two-horse race of the evening.

Best Supporting Actor: Geoffrey Rush (6.8)
Only once in the past 50 years has a movie spawned the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor (Mystic River in 2003), so Geoffrey Rush would be wise to start practising his loser's smile - Christian Bale is widely touted for the Supporting Oscar, and is indeed a 1.16 hot-shot.

Best Supporting Actress: Helena Bonham Carter (10.0)
But for a decent outside bet, it might be worth taking a long look at Helena Bonham-Carter, who put in a very decent shift as the Queen Mum, and could prove to be one of the minor upsets of the night in the Best Supporting Actress category.

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Only last week Arsène Wenger was speaking about the importance of holding on to a winning position. "A draw in this league punishes you," he said, before Arsenal's fortuitous 2-1 win against Everton. Not four days later his side threw away a four-goal lead at Newcastle which resulted in draw that was backed at 490.00 on Betfair.

The temptation here is to criticise Arsenal's supine rearguard for crumbling under the pressure once again. After all, the Gunners' back-line is widely accepted as their Achilles heel and the fact that they became the first side in the history of the Premier League to lose a four-goal lead would appear to support this conviction.

However, every performance should be judged on its own merit and on this occasion the main reason Arsenal - 3.9 to win the leagu - are not two points behind Manchester United 1.93 today is because of a series of abject decisions by the match officials. Firstly, with the visitors 4-0 up, Phil Dowd erroneously disallowed Leon Best's perfectly good goal for Newcastle and then he embarked on the worst series of injustices since Byron Moreno single-handedly knocked Italy out of the 2002 World Cup.

Abou Diaby didn't exactly help his side's cause by getting himself sent off for grabbing Joey Barton by the throat and throwing him to the ground. He just about stopped short of pressing his foot on his neck and waiting for Arsène Wenger to give the thumbs down. Barton knew what he was doing when he followed through recklessly after winning the ball from a player who has already sustained two career-threatening injuries from similar such challenges, but there was no excuse for Diaby's hot-headedness.

Thereafter, Newcastle, a man to the good and cheered on by impressively raucous support, were bound to create a goalscoring chance or two and Best's goal was the product of their endeavour. But quite what Dowd was thinking when awarding two penalties to the hosts remains unknown. The first spot-kick was given after Laurent Koscielny's air-kick between the legs of Best was deemed a foul, despite the defender making no contact with the striker. The second was awarded after Koscielny and Rosicky jumped fairly for a header in the area.

To add insult to injury Dowd booked Wojciek Szczesny after he had been thrown to the floor by Kevin Nolan when trying to get the ball after the first penalty. And as for the last-gasp equaliser, it was a spectacular volley that crowned a gutsy comeback for Newcastle, but if it was a fitting end to a pulsating eight-goal thriller, that was because it was born of yet another howler from the referee.

Again Rosicky was adjudged the culprit. Quite what the Czech Republic midfielder brings to this Arsenal side remains a mystery and perhaps the man in the middle decided to penalise him, like Diaby, for just being a waste of space, but again the 30-year-old was pulled up for trying to win an aerial challenge by jumping in the air with his hands down. The Magpies scored from the resulting free-kick.

It should be highlighted that Arsenal did not just drop two points because of Dowd. Newcastle showed great character to keep at it in what has been a trying week, and Diaby's dismissal is further proof that Wenger's charges are all too prone to ill-discipline. The Frenchman is the sixth Gunners' player to be sent off this season - only Manchester City have a worse record in the top-flight - and two of those red cards were for violent reactions to perceived rash challenges. Indeed, it is always worth backing a red card in an Arsenal match.

However, when in one match you see such alarming inconsistency (Diaby off, Nolan on) and three wrong decisions directly leading to three goals, the finger cannot be pointed at Arsenal's notoriously soft centre. Instead you begin to see why Cesc Fabregas, allegedly, asked the match officials how much they had been paid to throw the Everton match last week after the Merseysiders' offside goal award.

David Moyes took exception to the suggestion that his side had got to the referees. But maybe Fabregas wasn't pointing the finger at Everton. Maybe it was directed at someone else with a vested interest. We all like to think of our game as being above suspicion, that fair play and good sportmanship represent our national game, but with so many millions at stake nowadays we cannot know for sure.

After all, if Chelsea can effectively buy the league title with Abramovich's millions, and Manchester City can try a similar tactic, who is to say that they, or anyone else, can't also buy bad lieutenants who are immune from having to answer for their decisions?

Refereeing mistakes will always be a part of the game and we can only hope that they are honest. In the meantime, Wenger can at least take solace that this time his side hasn't been "punished" for a draw but have instead narrowed the gap on United.

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Nick Shiambouros looks for the best bets ahead of this weekend's NBA match-ups

The Miami Heat beat the Orlando Magic 104-100 in a thoroughly entertaining affair on Thursday night. The great LeBron James was on fire for Miami scoring a season high 51 points.

Miami were in control for most of the game and took a 90-67 lead with under eight minutes left in the fourth quarter. The Magic staged a rally to make things interesting in the final minute but came up short after Ryan Anderson missed a long range shot in the final seconds.

This was the fourth win in a row for Miami and they are just 2.5 games behind Boston in the Eastern Conference.
　
The San Antonio Spurs beat the Los Angeles Lakers 89-88 with a huge effort late on Thursday at the Staples Center.

The Spurs won the game at the buzzer after Antonio McDyess tipped the ball in following a Tim Duncan miss. The Lakers walked off the floor in disbelief after suffering this heartbreaking loss.

The victory moves San Antonio 7.5 games ahead of Dallas and Los Angeles in the Western Conference.

There are a couple of very interesting fixtures taking place this Super Bowl weekend.

On Saturday the Dallas Mavericks travel to the Charlotte Bobcats.

The Mavs come in to this game in sparkling form. On Thursday Dallas recorded their sixth win in a row after thrashing New York 113-97. Dirk Nowitzki has fully recovered from a recent knee injury and is playing some outstanding basketball on both ends of the floor.

This veteran team is playing at a very high level at the moment and that spells trouble for Charlotte. The Bobcats are currently in eighth place in the Eastern Conference with a record of 21-27. Despite having a losing record Charlotte still have a fighting chance of making the post-season.

The Bobcats are led by Stephen Jackson who is having another solid year. This talented swingman is averaging over 18 points per game and is the main reason Charlotte remain in the playoff picture.

But my money has to be on Dallas. They are one of the most talented teams in the league and should easily dispose of Charlotte who do not have a deep enough rotation. They should be backed at around 1.9 with the advertised handicap.

On Sunday the New York Knicks play host to Philadelphia in an all Eastern Conference affair.

The Knicks are currently in sixth place in the Eastern Conference with a record of 25-23.

Forward Amar'e Stoudemire is having a superb year for New York and is averaging over 26 points per game. He is one of the most talented players in the league and is sure to make his presence felt in this game.

The 76ers have a record of 22-26 but have been playing better than their record suggests. This young team is led by Elton Brand who is averaging almost 15 points per game. This power forward is an effective post player who will give the Knicks plenty to think about inside the painted area.

I think Philadelphia could cause the upset in this game and should be priced at around 2.3 in the match odds market.
　
Recommended Wagers:
Saturday back Dallas with advertised handicap at 1.9
Sunday back Philadelphia at 2.3 in the match odds market

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Britain's gamblers have always been willing to accept that, from time-to-time, they'll be presented with an event that is decidedly lop-sided: Liverpool taking on a non-league team in the FA Cup; Arkle going for a third Gold Cup; Matt Cardle loosening the vocal chords on X Factor final night.

On occasions like this - where the scales of chance are heavily weighted on one side - the event is priced-up accordingly, and punters make their choice. Simple. It may well be that the weight of money required to make a wager on the favourite financially worthwhile, or the sheer improbability of an upset, mean that punters keep their money to themselves and wait for the next betting opportunity. But one thing is for certain: there's no meddling.

At least there never used to be. Back in the day, a British betting market had a pure simplicity to it: you could bet on any of the participants or, in some sports, the draw. That was it. Times have changed though. Now it's different. We're presented with a plethora of specials and handicap markets: gimmicks to breathe life into otherwise comatose events.

Why? You wouldn't find Radio Four spicing up the Shipping Forecast for the benefit of listeners (Producer: "Any chance we can say there's a hurricane heading for Humber?"); so why do we feel the need to make every sporting event of betting interest? What's wrong with watching a hundred-to-one-on-shot for the sheer numerical beauty of it?
I blame the Americans. Coca-colonisation doesn't stop with soft-drinks and fast-food you see: now we even bet like our transatlantic cousins.

In America, it's all about the "spread". Unsatisfied with sporting events where the winner seemed a foregone conclusion, Charles K McNeil came up with the idea that, in any two-outcome event, the underdog should be "given" a certain amount of points in order to turn them into an even-money shot. This point addition - usually expressed with half-point fractions to avoid the possibility of a draw - was known as the "spread".

This Super Bowl Sunday - not to be confused with "Superb Owl Sunday", an event my spell-checker is clearly more excited by - all the talk is about the spread. When the Green Bay Packers take on the Pittsburgh Steelers at Cowboys Stadium, they will do so with the paltry advantage of just one-and-a-half points in some Nevada casinos - the smallest spread of the last half-century.

If the teams are so closely matched then, what's the point of the spread? Well, it's become a tradition I suppose. And it gives the casino PR-men something to talk about. Take RJ Bell. He's been trotting out a statistic of late: the team installed as Super Bowl favourites by Las Vegas casinos have won 32 out of 44 renewals - a 73 per cent hit rate. And the point spread, according to Bell, can be seen as an "unmatched predictor" of NFL games.

Well, maybe. But that largely depends on the records those favourites took into Super Bowls. If they tended to be very short-priced favourites, that success rate would likely have been matched by any armchair football fan. And a German octopus would have done even better still.

And anyhow, analysis conducted by Andrew Iskoe suggests that Vegas oddsmakers aren't actually as good at constructing the point spread as Bell would have us believe - with it only proving decisive in less than one in six games.

On that basis then, I'm going to throw out Bell's Vegas-favourite statistic. The ratings suggest this game is a coin-toss and so, at 2.34, the Pittsburgh Steelers have to be the value call.

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For once the Contrarian is supporting a favourite, albeit with a twist. Here's why he thinks England will win the Grand Slam this year in the Six Nations at 6.4...

England head into the tournament with momentum

For the first time since 2006, England beat one of the Southern Hemisphere's big three in an autumn international with an emphatic 35-18 victory over Australia in November at Twickenham. Australia then humiliated Six Nations holders France 59-16 a fortnight later. Outsiders Scotland were the only other European side to enjoy a win over a top-three ranked country (21-17 over South Africa) a success that owed more to an inspired display by fly-half Dan Parks, who scored all the points with his feet, than a heroic team effort.

Johnson has finally assembled a competitive squad

The consecutive victories over Australia (England also won 21-20 in Sydney in June), the first England have strung together against the Wallabies since lifting the World Cup in 2003 and all the more impressive for coming after a run of five defeats in six in the grudge clash, have not only galvanised a previously struggling side, they've vindicated coach Martin Johnson. The 40-year-old had largely struggled since succeeding Brian Ashton in 2008 but performances in the second half of 2010 won round many doubters, as it appears that the World Cup winner's vision is starting to come into fruition, with the youngsters he has entrusted such as Ben Foden and Chris Ashton flourishing as they gain more experience.

The Grand Slam isn't an incredible achievement

In seven of the last nine years, including each of the last three, the Six Nations champions have signed off with a perfect record, suggesting that if you win your first two, it's surprisingly easy to maintain a winning streak. Those statistics indicate that odds of 1.7 on nobody delivering a Slam are there to be laid and England, both as 2.92 competition frontrunners and the pacesetters when it comes to most Grand Slams, have to be fancied to maintain the recent trend by getting to March with a 100 per cent win rate for the 13th time.

It's a World Cup year

England regularly raise their game at the World Cup, reaching the last two finals and getting to at least the semi-finals in four of the last five. They also tend to prepare for the big occasion with strong displays in the Six Nations. They've won the Grand Slam in three of the last five World Cup years - with their 2003 triumph undeniably setting the stage for their World Cup assault - a vast improvement on their showings in the other 18 years of that period, winning four Six Nations with only one Grand Slam.

Ashton is going to have a huge impact

Twenty-three-year-old Northampton Saints star Ashton is arguably the most dangerous winger in the northern hemisphere right now having scored 78 tries in 81 games at club level, a record that saw him named Aviva Premiership player of the season last term, while he has already provided three in seven outings for England. He is also a fresh threat at this level, first appearing in the Six Nations in the final fixture last year against France. A prolific winger can make all the difference, as Shane Williams and Tommy Bowe proved in Wales and Ireland's respective 2008 and 2009 Grand Slam wins.

For more Six Nations betting articles, go to http://betting.betfair.com/rugby-bet/rugby-union/six-nations-betting/

Tiger's turmoil continued on the weekend with a 44th place finish at a venue, Torrey Pines, where he was previously impregnable. And yet he is still odds on for a major win in 2011, says a shocked Ralph Ellis

On holiday in Spain I once found myself playing what must have been the world's only 13 hole golf course. Unlucky in more ways than one. It wasn't meant to be that way. It had been built, snaking through beautiful orange groves, with 18 challenging holes surrounded by luxury villas.

Sadly for the people who had moved there with promises of a golden retirement the money for maintenance ran out, the developers disappeared, and the only solution had been to leave some of the greens to go wild.

If they are still there, the remaining residents can feel proud of that this morning - or at least compared to the first ever Tiger Woods-designed golfing centre in Dubai. There, it appears, only six holes have been completed on what was meant to be a $1.1billion development. Word is that not only are they abandoning the rest of the plan, but will stop watering what has been built. In six months the desert will take over again.

That's bad news for the people who had already put down deposits to secure the mansions which were designed to overlook the fairways. But it just about sums up how the world of Woods has come crashing down in little more than 12 months since that early hours car accident which blew open the whole charade of his private life.

It seems he's been in therapy, both for his life and his golf swing, ever since. And so far nothing seems to have halted the decline either off or on the course. He's even more surly than ever, this weekend even refusing to answer straightforward questions about his schedule. And after finishing tied in 44th place in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines there's no sign of his ability to win coming back either.

The man who once intimidated everyone who found themselves drawn to play him was even put in the shade by Venezuala's rising star Jhonattan Vegas.

The only people scared of Tiger now appear to be punters. How else do you explain that, after a year without winning a tournament, he's already been installed as favourite for every single Major of 2011? All logic says that's a bargain chance to lay him, and also to take the near even money 1.95 on offer in Betfair's Tiger Specials market for him to win no Majors at all.

Amazingly he's as short as 5.9 for The Masters, while the man who has taken over as world number one Lee Westwood is 15.0. Last year's winner Phil Mickelson is nearly twice the price at 10.0. Paul Casey, who picked up his first trophy of the season by calmly holing an eight foot putt on the last in Bahrain, is 34.0.

All the evidence says the Tiger era is over. Sadly his reality is that, just like that unfinished development in the Dubai desert, he doesn't appear capable any longer of putting more than six good holes together.

Five things you might not know about Jhonattan Vegas
1. Born in the Venezualan capital of Maturin in August 1984, dad Carlos and mum Mauritza did the catering on a nine-hole golf course built for American oil workers.
2. He was four years old when his grandfather taught him to play the game using a broomstick and a rock
3. He left home aged 17 to seek his fortune in North America - his father forbade him from attending a baseball game for fear he would be trampled by the crowds
4. He won a golf scholarship to the University of Texas where a local property developer Dick Kemp became his legal guardian to help subsidise his progress. Kemp has now taken the same role for Jhonattan's younger brother Julio who also plays golf at the University
5. He spoke only ten words of English when first moving to America, but has completed his university degree in Kinesiology, the science of human movement

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You can put as brave a face on it as you like but the fact is this has been a bitterly disappointing One Day series for England. Trailing 4-1, with a couple of dead rubbers to play, it's time to move on and look at the next big challenge.

A month ago, England were expected to win the Ashes, batter the Aussies in the One Day series, solve the global financial dilemma, win the World Cup, come up with a solution to the Middle East crisis, improve their Test ranking and find a cure for cancer. Andy Flower and Andy Strauss were all things to all Englishmen, nothing was impossible under their leadership.

Welcome to international cricket, four weeks later the dream is shattered, and now a World Cup win looks about as likely as Sepp Blatter getting an invite to Prince William's wedding! England need inspiration and, as there seems to be very little waiting in the wings, it's necessary to delve back into the past to come up with three names that could make a real difference to the team and lead England to their first 50 over World Cup win...

Mike Brearley
A cricketing enigma if ever there was one. Brearley played 39 Tests for England and skippered the side during 31 of those matches. He was a captain who could apparently get inside the heads of of his players and inspire them to great performances. He was also one of the old school 'win at all costs' types. During the 1979 tour Down Under he put the entire field (including the wicket- keeper) on the boundary ropes when three runs were required off the last ball. Shades of the Chappell brothers!

He had an exceptional record as a Test skipper, during the 31 Tests that he led his country they were only beaten four times. There was one teeny weeny flaw in Brearley's make up however, he wasn't a very good cricketer! He didn't bowl and he didn't bat too well either, his Test average was a meagre 22.88!

Douglas Jardine
Good old Dougie! A true English gentleman (born in Bombay, of course) who displayed the sportsmanship and sense of fair play of a Roman Emperor in the Colosseum! Who needs stumps to bowl at? Ribs and armpits are a much smaller target and require a greater level of skill to hit! Sadly, he died 13 years before the first ODI was played so he wouldn't have a clue how to win a World Cup!

Mike Gatting
Mr Diplomacy himself, the man who stood up for the Land of Hope and Glory by wagging his finger at Shakoor Rana. Rana was devastated and refused to take the field until Gatting apologised. He duly did (after having been ordered to do so by the ECB) and the series continued with as much bonhomie as a murder trial! It did raise questions about home country umpiring, particularly the old chestnut about Javed Miandad never been given out LBW in Pakistan despite being hugely prone to that method of dismissal when touring. Gatting went on to lead England to an Ashes win Down Under in 1987, a feat that was not repeated until... this year!


England are currently 7.2 to win the ICC World Cup that gets underway on February 19. The three captains listed above have all made a memorable contribution to English cricket but seriously, most English fans are more than happy with what they've got. Andy Strauss (undoubtedly aided by Andy Flower) is doing a superb job and has put a smile back on the face of English cricket. They can be forgiven this latest series. Winning the World Cup would more than make up for it!

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