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Michael Vaughan's cricket insight
The Test series was a rude awakening for England but they get a chance to try and redeem themselves with this four-match ODI series. If we're looking for positives then we can say that some of the England batsmen who now take to the limited-overs format should know how to play the likes of Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman by now. One of the guys who really struggled against them, Ian Bell, has been dropped and there are some new guys like Jos Butler, Steven Davies and Ravi Bopara coming in who may not have played against those guys before but then again, won't have nightmares about what happened in the Test matches to haunt them.

Kevin Pietersen is opening the batting just like he did at the World Cup and that's a good move. Firstly because he's probably still England's most dangerous player in this format and will enjoy batting when the ball (or balls as it now given that two are used throughout the match) is hard. And secondly because I think it's time to abandon the experiment of opening with Craig Kieswetter, who will drop down the order.

Jonathan Trott may contribute in terms of weight of runs but I simply can't have him and Alastair Cook batting together in the top three. You can't axe the skipper so if I was me, I'd be tempted to leave Trott out and play Samit Patel at three. The Notts all-rounder also likes to bat when the ball is hard and something England need to start doing is playing the batsmen in the positions they bat for when playing for their counties. Patel bats at three for his county so he should bat there for England as well.

If Jos Butler is going to get a game he should bat at four, which is where he comes in for Somerset. But I'd actually be tempted to play Bopara and find out for once and for all if he can cut it at this level. He'd also provide another useful option as a fourth seamer. Then it would be Eoin Morgan at five, Jonny Bairstow at six and the aforementioned Kieswetter in the traditional keeper's position of seven.

Of these Morgan would be my selection to end the series as top-runscorer. I know he only comes in at five but we saw in the Test series how one wickets leads to another and he may well be at the crease a lot earlier than England would have liked! He's available at 6.0.

The rest pretty much pick themselves with Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, James Anderson and one of Tim Bresnan or Steve Finn.

Pakistan are arguably a better Test side at the moment than they are ODI team but this will be far from easy for England. Shahid Afridi is and always has been a match-winner and Umar Akmal has been accused of being a little reckless at times but he's another who can turn a game very quickly. They will both come into the side and could be big players for Pakistan in this series.

The big problem England have is that I wouldn't fancy them to chase anything above 250 and that's likely to be on the cards if Pakistan bat first. We saw in the Test series that England's batters couldn't keep their wickets intact against the spinners, let alone score off them so I can't see how that's going to change now, especially with the pressure of a tricky run-chase on. I can picture a scenario where England are chasing 230-250 and fall well short just like they did in the Tests.

England's best bet is to bat first if they win the toss, be aggressive against the spinners and try to set a decent total. We have seen Pakistan struggle to chase good scores plenty of times in the past so the toss may end up being really important. Still, we have to side with Pakistan because of the momentum they bring into the one-dayers and their better knowledge of the conditions. If England don't win one of the first two matches it could easily end up being another whitewash, just as it was in India before Christmas but I think they will, so 3-1 would be my idea of the series score.

1pt Back Eoin Morgan to be England top series runscorer @ 6.0
3 pts Back Pakistan to win the series @ 2.22
Back Pakistan to win the series 3-1 @ 3.4


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First things first. Just about anyone and everyone who has an opinion on cricket has been very quick to rubbish England's performance in the Second Test and that's fair enough. But let's not forget one thing: Andrew Strauss' men were awful for a session and a half on day four but they weren't actually that bad for the rest of the Test. They put themselves in a winning position and they traded very low in-play on Betfair when chasing a small target. England may have blown a great chance to level the series but it's not like they were under cosh for the whole of the match so we need to remember that before calling it an all-round dreadful performance.

There was nothing disappointing about this column's tips though, with an initial lay of the draw at 2.2 and a mid-match back of Pakistan at 2.54 both coming good.

England's batting may have collapsed on that fateful Saturday afternoon but I don't see the point of ringing the changes. Bringing in Steve Davies or Ravi Bopara into a losing team against a trio of spinners they haven't faced, on a wicket they don't know, is almost a case of lambs to the slaughter. For all the failures Eoin Morgan, Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell have had, at least they've seen plenty of Saeed Ajmal, Mohammad Hafeez and last game's man-of-the-match Abdur Rehman. Now it's up to those three (plus Strauss if we're being completely honest) to work out how to play them better and go out and get a big score.

One thing England's batsmen have to be wary of though is to not get too caught up just with Ajmal. Yes, he was the guy who took all those wickets in the First Test and is probably the bowler with the greatest variations but by worrying just about him, they allowed the others to actually come along and take the wickets. Umar Gul took four in the first innings and it was Rehman who led Pakistan to victory in the second innings, with six. The latter is a pretty good player and if anything, the pace at which he bowls is the best suited to bowling spin on these wickets.

How are we betting on this then? Well, you can lay the draw with a high degree of confidence at 3.55. The First Test was over within three days and the Second within four so I don't see that this match is all of a sudden going to go the distance when all of the main factors: the players, the wicket, the conditions etc are virtually exactly the same. But the better bet is to back Pakistan at 2.8. I see no reason why the team who won the first two Tests and doesn't really have anyone out of form is a bigger price than the outfit they've just beaten which is filled with players who will feel that they are under pressure for their places. There may be some morning dew to assist Stuart Broad and James Anderson while Monty Panesar's return was a very pleasing one so England's bowling isn't in a particularly bad shape. But to give themselves a chance of winning this Test, England will need to score 300 at least once and to do that at least one batsman will have to get a century. I can't think of too many obvious candidates.

It's been a quiet series so far for the elder statesman of this Pakistan side, Younis Khan. He has to come good eventually, any batsman with his class always does. So he's my selection to top score for Pakistan in the first innings at 5.0.

4 pts Back Pakistan to win @ 2.8
1 pt Back Younis Khan to be Pakistan top first innings batsman @ 5.0


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A cricket dressing room is a great place to be in when you're winning but a pretty miserable one when you've just been hammered. There will have been plenty of soul-searching amongst the England players as to what went wrong and plenty of work done by analysts and other background staff into why their batting line-up capitulated not once, but twice. No prizes for guessing which Pakistan bowler will have been the subject of the greatest amount of analysis. If England don't play Saeed Ajmal a lot better than they did in the First Test they're in big trouble but hopefully all this fancy technical equipment will help them work out where they went wrong last time.

Chris Tremlett isn't fully fit so will miss out, although I suspect the Surrey paceman wouldn't have played anyway, even if he was 100%. This will be a pretty flat pitch here in Abu Dhabi and that's not really the sort of track where he's dangerous. All the talk has been of Monty Panesar being brought in to help Graeme Swann with spinning duties but I'm not sure that's the way forward. There should be some cracks emerging and a some rough areas to aim at on days four and five but during the first three days you need to put pressure on the batsmen by either generating your own spin or varying the pace at which you're bowling. I'm not sure Monty will be a huge threat in those conditions and I'd actually go with Graham Onions instead.

It's been a while since we last saw the Durham man in action but this may just be his sort of pitch. We know there's unlikely to be much swing assisting the bowlers and the pitch may have just that little bit more bounce than the one in Dubai but there's still not much chance of wickets falling to short-pitched deliveries. And this might just be where Onions comes into the equation, bowling stump-to-stump deliveries. The DRS was prominent in the First Test and if you bowl straight enough on the Abu Dhabi wicket and hit the pads, that may just be the best chance you have of taking wickets.

As regards the batters, Eoin Morgan is probably the only player whose place may be in doubt but dropping him just because Ravi Bopara can bowl would be rash. And this England management team don't do rash.

The Betfair market suggests a draw (2.2) is on the cards. The reason for that is that both of the two matches played here before did end in high-scoring draws. But we should remember that when Pakistan drew with Sri Lanka late last year, the latter needed a double century from the great Kumar Sangakarra to avoid defeat because Pakistan pretty much had them on the ropes.

I'm laying the draw at 2.2. Over the past few years England have played in all manner of conditions and very rarely do their matches end up in boring draws. OK, so there was the First Test of the 2010/11 Ashes series in Adelaide but (excluding two against Sri Lanka last summer where a huge amount of play was lost to rain) the stalemates have been thrilling draws - Panesar and James Anderson batting out the last few overs at Cardiff, Onions out in South Africa and the West Indies tail (twice in the series) doing the same with just one wicket in hand in the Caribbean, the last time England lost a Test series.

This England team don't do boring because they've become accustomed to playing an aggressive brand of cricket. That's why they've been entertaining to watch since Andy Flower took over. If anything, Pakistan are the more likelier side to go on and win the match for two good reasons: I can't see England scoring 550-plus to put themselves in a wining position and Pakistan (3.8) look better suited to taking 20 wickets on this pitch. But England are capable of winning because they've developed that sort of winning habit so I'd rather cover both bases by laying the draw than just backing Pakistan.

For England first innings top batsman honours, it has to be Jonathan Trott. He looked really good in the second innings and was picking Ajmal before getting out to an uncharacteristically careless shot off the bowling of Umar Gul. That was just a lapse in concentration because I think Trott was on for a big score and he's worth backing at 5.0 to build on a good start and pile on the runs.

My last tip for the match is that a bowler will take five wickets in an innings. Ajmal took seven in the first innings of the First Test and both Gul and Graeme Swann took four so there's a good chance that it will happen again. Ajmal is the most likely player to do it but there are plenty of others who can get on a roll and with the wicket likely to get considerably worse on days four and five, there's a good chance for someone to really cash in.

3 pts lay the draw at 2.2.
2 pts Back Jonathan Trott to be England first innings top batsman @ 5.0
2 pts Back a bowler to take five wickets in an innings @ 1.7


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England must master Ajmal

19 Jan 12 09:23
I'm afraid to say the First Test has gone pretty much as predicted in my preview of it. I say afraid because as an ex-England captain, seeing my team getting skittled out for 192 in the first innings isn't exactly what I wanted to see happening. Still, I'm here on Betting.Betfair as an analyst and tipster rather than as a fan so hopefully you will have followed my advice of backing Pakistan at 3.9 with a view to laying tem off at a shorter price in-play.

Two days of cricket must lead us to one extremely obvious conclusion: Saaed Ajmal is not only the key to this Test, he's likely to be the most important man throughout the whole series. If England can't handle him they'll lose this Test and conceivably one or two more. The fact they've found the spinner so hard to face doesn't come as too much of a surprise, though.

In Australia they didn't have to face a champion spinner and when India came to England the best the tourists had to offer was an over-the-hill Harbhajan Singh. Sri Lanka came to town for the first time in a decade-an-a-half without Muttiah Muralitharan in the side. And not only have they not faced 'mystery' spinners but they haven't actually played much cricket in the sub-continent either. And we saw what happened when they did, during the ODI series in India at the back end of last year, which was very much a case of trial by spin for at least 20 overs. OK, Test cricket is a completely different game and the UAE pitches are only similar to those in the sub-continent. But the point still stands that England are far from comfortable from playing a spinner, who possesses numerous different deliveries in his armoury, on a slow pitch.

The only way the England batsmen are going to be able to handle Ajmal is by spending time at the crease. Lots of it. The more deliveries of his they face the more they'll get used to him and the easier they'll find it to score runs off him. Even if they end up losing this Test it's imperative that the top order hangs around for long enough to work him out.

As for this Test, a lead of 96 runs is a big advantage and that explains Pakistan's price of 1.67. With three more wickets in hand they might add 30 or 40 more runs and England will bat again knowing they're under serious pressure. They'll then have to score between 275-300 and make a game of it by giving Pakistan something to chase. That sort of total seems a long way away but England haven't got to number one in the world by throwing in the towel. They've done it by getting themselves out of holes. Sometimes by skill, sometimes by sheer gritty determination. They'll need plenty of the latter right now.

How then do we approach the betting on the match odds market? Well for starters we can take the draw (5.4) out of the equation. Too many wickets have fallen already and this pitch will only deteriorate so we're not getting a stalemate. The best way to approach things is to back-to-lay England. There's not much batting left to come in this Pakistan line-up and England could mop up this tail very quickly. Doing that would see England's price come in, as would getting off to a good start in the second innings. Neither are inconceivable and I'd be very surprised if Strauss and co don't drop below 4.0 at some stage so a trade on England's price is the way to approach this.

Back England at 4.8, lay off at 4.0.

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All in all this should be a fascinating series. We know that England are virtually unbeatable in their own conditions where the ball swings and we know they can also be extremely efficient on slightly harder and faster tracks like those they encountered in Australia last winter. But here in the UAE they will be faced with conditions that they don't know well and adapting them to quickly will the latest challenge facing Andrew Strauss' side. And not just against any old team. Not only are Pakistan the most-improved side in Test cricket over the past year or so but they will actually feel like they're playing at home given that most of the cricket they've played over the past two years has been right here, because of the ICC's ban on them hosting international matches on home soil.

Key to Pakistan's success has been the form of Saeed Ajmal, the off-spinner who for so long was seen very much just as an ODI player. But he's taken over from Danish Kaneria as the Test team's main spinner and ended 2011 as the most successful bowler in Test cricket. He's got a huge variety of deliveries and can toil away all day on pitches he knows pretty well by now. I'm also expecting big performances from fast bowler Umar Gul and the evergreen Younus Khan. Every Test team needs a middle-order batsman who focuses primarily on not giving away his wicket in the knowledge that the runs will come naturally. Khan is the man who does that for this team.

As for England, they have two big strengths as far as I can see. The first one is that they've developed a good habit of batsmen going on to score really heavily once they get in. 'Daddy hundreds' I think they're calling them these days! But that's crucial in modern Test cricket and we've seen Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen all do that over the last year or so. And in big matches too. The other great strength in this England team is the variety of the bowling. James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Chris Tremlett, Steve Finn, Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar. Each and every one of them brings something slightly different to the table and means an opposing batsman never feels like they're completely settled at the crease.

A word on Tim Bresnan, who has gone home injured. England will miss him badly. Not exactly one of the most glamorous players in the side but he's a no-nonsense cricketer who brings great balance to the side. He may not necessarily have made the XI for the First Test but he'd be the first man brought in if injuries or a really poor performance from someone were to occur.

We have two-evenly matched teams here and unlike some of England's recent matches, I expect all of them to go into day five, whether they end as draws or we get a result.

What's the bet then? Pakistan look too big at the current 3.65 to win the series. I expect them to come out all guns blazing on day one of the opening Test so whether they bat or bowl first I expect them to be on top after the first day's play. But this is Pakistan we're talking about and we've seen before how heads can drop and confidence can evaporate if a couple of sessions don't go their way. I wouldn't trust them to keep the intensity levels up for a potential fifteen days so they represent a good back-to-lay, rather than showing faith in them till the bitter end.

Back Pakistan @ 3.65 and lay them off at 3.0 in the Series Winner market.

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It's no surprise to see Graeme Swann head the England top series bowler market at around 2.8. After all, as a spinner he's more likely to bowl more overs than anyone else and these are turning pitches out in the UAE. Or are they?

Whereas I expect these wickets to deteriorate by days four and five and for the spinners on both sides to have plenty of fun on them at that stage, I think it will the seamers doing the vast majority of the work for the first three days. And they'll get two bites of the cherry. They can be extremely dangerous with the new ball especially if there's a bit of morning dew in the wicket and then again when the ball is around 30 overs old and starts to reverse swing. Something that Stuart Broad, Chris Tremlett and James Anderson all have in their locker.

Of these three my preference goes to Anderson. He's the one with the most experience and the greatest variety in his bowling. Outswingers, reverse swing, slower balls, bouncers, yorkers, you name it. If we're being really analytical about it he's also the one bowler who will almost certainly play all three matches. Broad and Tremlett have both been a tad injury prone over the last couple of years and if England decided to go with a second spinner in the shape of Monty Panesar, it would probably be Tremlett who would make way. Anderson gets the nod at around 4.0.

As far as the batsmen go, I wouldn't want to be looking outside the top three. Facing the new ball is when scoring runs will be easiest on these pitches and when batsmen will have the best chance of getting themselves in. After that it's trial by spin (Saeed Ajmal) and reverse swing (Umar Gul). Write off Andrew Strauss at your peril but if we're being really honest, he hasn't scored quite as heavily over the past year and a half as what we're accustomed to seeing from him. Jonathan Trott is as greedy as they come in terms of accumulating runs but he's never played Test cricket on these sort of pitches and may take a while to get used to them before coming up with a really big score.

All of which leaves Alastair Cook. He scored endless runs last year, looks completely comfortable with his own game at the moment and has mastered the art of weathering the storm before launching a counter-attack once he gets in. I've talked about the importance of daddy hundreds already and he's the daddy of those. It's time to feast on the 4.5 about Cook.

2 pts Back James Anderson to be England series top wicket-taker @ 4.0
Back Alastair Cook to be England series Top Runscorer @ 4.5


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My best and worst of 2011

12 Dec 11 09:42
Moment of 2011: Darren Clarke winning the Open. He won so easily in the end, I've never watched a Sunday afternoon like it. He'd been in the wilderness for so long, everyone just wanted him to win.

Performance of 2011: Mark Cavendish. What he's achieved in 2011 is quite extraordinary. Cycling isn't a sport that's often recognised, but it should be.

Hero of 2011: Mario Balotelli. He's my new hero, he's just completely bonkers but he has class with it.

Villain of 2011: Carlos Tevez. What a clown. I've got not time for him.

Bet for 2012: I'll say a treble. Man City to win the Premier League, Jessica Ennis to win Olympic gold, and Tiger Woods to win the Open - he loves playing that.

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The likes of Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott will be glad to be home already. They got absolutely thrashed in the ODI series and I'm sure they won't have been in the mood for a one-off T20 match against an Indian side high on confidence and littered with in-form players.

The irony of it is that it's England, not India, who are the T20 World Champions and the number one ranked side in the world. But we must put that into context. For starters England have played very few T20 matches in the sub-Continent and if their ODI record is anything to go by, if they'd played many more I'm not sure that they would be top of the pile. Then we need to remember the manner of England's World Cup win. They played the whole tournament with virtually the same XI (they had no injuries) and chased in pretty much every match so knew what they had to do to get over the line. They had a tried and trusted formula and in Stuart Broad, Ryan Sidebottom, Eoin Morgan and Kevin Pietersen four incredibly consistent performers throughout the tournament.

The problem for would-be England backers at 2.46 is that none of those first three will be playing on Saturday, whilst KP is a major doubt. Sidebottom has retired from international cricket in order to prolong his international career whilst Broad and Morgan didn't make this tour through injury. One thing we've learnt over the last few weeks is that England are a very different proposition with and without the Irishman. He's scored priceless half-centuries and wonderful tons at crucial times to help England set big scores and chase down totals. With him England are a very good side, without him they're pretty ordinary.

This pitch could be a real 'turner' and if it is, that signals big trouble for England. They haven't been able to handle spin during the ODI series so there's no reason why they should be able to all of a sudden cope with it now. I suppose there's a possibility that England bat first and that the likes of Craig Kieswetter and Alex Hales go for broke with some big hits from the start and it all comes off. The pitch might then deteriorate and India don't quite chase down the total in difficult conditions. But those are too many 'ifs' for me and I'd at least want to be sure KP was playing before wagering any money on England. Yes, it's a shortish price in a format where anything can happen, but we have to back India again.

Talking of tried and trusted formulas, siding with Virat Kohli to top score for India a couple of times in the ODIs proved a profitable strategy so we're backing him again. I praised Man Of The Series MS Dhoni no end over the last few weeks here on betting.betfair and Suresh Raina is extremely dangerous in this format. But Kohli will come in higher and that could make all the difference.


Recommended Bets

3pts Back India to win @ 1.67
1 pt Back Virat Kohli to be Top Indian batsman @ 5.0


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England haven't bowled, fielded or batted well during this series. Other than that, they've been just fine!

Joking aside, I've talked about the batsmen making starts and not kicking on, wasting energy with intimidating tactics and bowling the wrong lengths. To those we can now add the fact they haven't made the most of that second batting powerplay.

The new ICC regulations have brought about a change meaning that now the powerplays can't be taken between the 11th and 15th overs. That means that the fielding captain normally takes the bowling one between the 16th and 20th and that the batting side normally take the batting powerplay between the 36th and 40th overs. The problem is you only really capitalise on the fielding restrictions if a) you have set batsmen at the crease and b) they actually find the gaps and, as a consequence, the boundary rope.

In the third ODI we had Jonathan Trott well set but failing to score quick runs during the powerplay and in the fourth we had what were basically tail-enders at the crease because the likes of Kevin Pietersen forced the issue and got out before the batting powerplay was taken. That's an issue England really need to address.

Another recent change by the ICC was to have a different ball at both ends. I suspect this is going to result in a combination of some very big scores and some pretty modest ones. Let me explain. In places like India where the wickets are generally very good we'll get some big scores because the ball will stay harder for longer and boundaries will be easier to come by. In places like England you'll get much lower scores because the ball will swing for longer and you'll have more incidences of teams actually being bowled out.

Either way, they're both good moves but the same can't be said of the ICC's decision to continue leaving it up to the two teams to decide whether they use the DRS (Decision Review System). We're left with the ridiculous scenario where one series we have it and the next we don't. Where's the consistency in that? And we know already that India will always decide against using it because they simply don't trust Hawkeye to be accurate enough.

What else should we change in cricket? Have less of it. When these two teams clash on Tuesday it will be the fourteenth time in the space of four months they will have played each other across all formats. I love the game as much as anyone and TV money keeps the sport going but it's reaching saturation point and you can't blame the fans for not going to every match or the punters at home for not tuning in.

As regards England, this is meant to be the "team of a generation" but great teams simply don't get beaten 5-0 or at best 4-1. When I toured India in 2001/2 under Nasser Hussain and played against the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble all in their prime, we drew the ODI series 3-3. And there was certainly no talk of us being that great a one-day team! This is a rude awakening for England: they're simply not that great away from home. The World Cup disappointment was blamed on an exhausting Ashes tour but there's no excuse this time. The players were fresh and prepared. Or at least they were meant to be.

I'm afraid I can't see anything other than an India win (1.7) in this final match played in Kolkata. They're simply a much better team in these conditions. Jonathan Trott has been criticised yet again for his slow scoring rate but at least he gets runs. Back him to outscore Alastair Cook at around 1.96.

As far as India goes, Gautam Gambhir is due but Virat Kohli has been outstanding and it's hard to look past him once again. Back him to shine again as England count down the days till this miserable tour ends.

2 pts Back India to win @ 1.7
2 pts Back Jonathan Trott -0.5 runs v Alastair Cook @ 1.96
3 pts Back Virat Koli to be Indian top batsman @ 4.8


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Very often when you lose a game of cricket you can go back and at least take some positives from it. The worrying thing for England is that really wasn't the case with Monday's match. Ok, Steve Finn bowled at over 90mph at times and continues to look a great prospect but that was about it.

We had five batsmen getting past 30 and failing to make a single half-century between them. I'll give Jonny Bairstow some slack because he's a young player on his first England tour and in fairness to Samit Patel, he got one that kept very low. But just like I said before that match, you need to get big scores in India to win games and unless someone does that, things aren't going to improve for England. And there's no excuse for someone not getting one. You only need to look at how easily Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir got to big scores to know there aren't too many demons in these wickets. And, while I've been impressed with the likes of Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin in the spin department, they're not exactly Muttiah Muralitharan just yet.

There's also a slight concern that at times the England lads are losing a bit of focus and getting too involved in little spats with the Indian players. When I captained England against India I was all for trying to get in their faces and unsettling them but you have to pick your battles and not forget what it is you're actually trying to do. On their own patch the likes of MS Dhoni, Kohli and Suresh Raina are going to give as good as they get in terms of the old 'verbals' because they're not afraid to get hit on the head as the wickets here have little or no bounce. So there isn't the same intimidation factor as in England.

Time for a change in England's XI? Well Ian Bell is waiting for his chance and the batsman looking most vulnerable is Craig Kieswetter. Andy Flower has the option of asking Bairstow to keep wicket and opening with Bell or Jonathan Trott. Kieswetter is looking like he's feeling the pressure of all this and desperately needs to make a big score. I think he'll still be picked for this match but we should side with the far more consistent Alastair Cook to outscore him at around 1.86.

Stuart Meaker might get a game just because he offers something a little different but it's anyone's guess who the Surrey paceman would come in for. But I wouldn't expect more than one change in the side for Thursday: this lot got England in this mess, this lot can get them out of it.

So it's India for me again at 1.7. They were better than England in all three departments again the other day and there's no reason why that's going to change all of a sudden.

My last bet may seem like a brave one but hear me out. It's always risky to take on a centurion from the previous match (Kohli) but Kevin Pietersen looked really good till edging to the keeper and is hungry for a huge score, so I'm backing KP against Kohli at 2.0.


3 pts Back India to win @ 1.7
2 pts Back Alastair Cook + 0.5 runs v Craig Kieswetter @ 1.82
1 pt Back Kevin Pietersen + 0.5 runs v Virat Kohli @ 2.0

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