Trading Talk – England v Australia Twenty20

The international cricket calendar is a congested one, so it is without respite that the roadshow continues and England prepare to face Australia in the shortest form of the game. With an equally brief history, there are few head-to-head Twenty20 clashes for cricket spread bettors to analyse. Sellers of England’s outright series win index spread will notice that since the 2005 curtain-raiser to that year’s Ashes series, where the Three Lions won at Southampton’s Rose Bowl, there have been just a further two meetings, both of which they lost by a wide margin to the Aussies – a side that have the honour of winning the first-ever T20 international.

Having witnessed fewbetween the sides in this format, cricket spread bettors will need to research other records. Spread punters looking to sell Australia’s supremacy, may also look to the fact that England have lost 12 and won just eight of the 20 over games they have played. However, that the men from Down Under also have an overall negative record in T20, having won 11 and lost 12 of their 33 games, will not have escaped the attention of sellers of their outright series win index spread.

Most recently both teams entered the ICC World Twenty20 2009, which also took place on these shores, and spread punters will have noticed that England toiled while the Baggy Greens took an early exit. Though Old Trafford – the venue for this two match series – was not used, sellers of the Aus/Eng trade deficit spread will see that under Paul Collingwood’s stewardship the England team has averaged 154 runs from the five games they played. With Ricky Ponting’s men crashing out in the group stage after just two games it is necessary to look back a little further to see that their five-game mean is lower at 148, a figure sellers of their 50-ups or other run related spreads will also take note of.

Come the first game of the series on Sunday 30th August all eyes will be on Andrew Flintoff to see whether he will be able to haul his troublesome body through another battle just a week on from the Ashes conclusion. Should he take to his home pitch, buyers of England’s team 50-ups will hope he can contribute. They may be oblivious to the fact that Flintoff has only hit two maximums from his seven international innings, and in that time averaged a mere 12.66 runs – somewhat shorter than his 32.01 in one day games. Sporting Index spread punters will know that despite Kevin Pietersen’s big-hitting reputation, it is short-form skipper Collingwood who is his country’s top slogger. Buyers of the total sixes spread will hope that he can justify his inclusion in the top ten for T20 career sixes, having smashed 15 compared to KP’s 12. Pietersen’s only missed one previous England T20 game, but will be forced to sit out this series. This will give Collingwood the chance to extend his lead over him in the sixes stakes and – with 407 to his name so far – hope of chasing him down in the career runs ladder where KP currently sits fourth in the all time list with 529.