mvaughan

Ok, hands up all of you who really thought England were going to win the First Test when they finally got play under way yesterday afternoon. No, me neither.

There's a reason why the layers were offering odds of 1,000 about England on Betfair at that stage and what we witnessed was one of the most unbelievable two sessions of cricket I've ever had the pleasure to watch. By the way, for those of you who did secure those monster prices about Andrew Strauss and his players being all smiles at the end of it all - make mine a double!

But my column on Betting.Betfair did secure a nice profit nonetheless. We started by recommending a back-to-lay of the draw before the off at 2.66 with most of the profit saved on England and we topped that up by going with England at 4.8 (and laying off when they reached 3.0) at the close of play on Friday. We also had England to score 475 runs or more in their first innings at 2.0 which also came good as Jonathan Trott in particular shone with the bat and England piled on the runs. Andrew Strauss and Mahela Jayawardene let us down in the top runscorer markets but we ended up very much in the black at the end of the Test. Or should that be in the green?

The England selectors have some tough decisions to make ahead of the Second Test with James Anderson ruled out and Tillekaratne Dilshan will want to freshen things up himself after a pretty one-dimensional performance by his bowlers and an awful second-innings collapse with the bat. It promises to be another intriguing contest and I'll be previewing it on Thursday and providing another half-way update after day two. England are understandably the favourites to make it two from two and currently trade at 1.67.

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