The Ashes: Where To Now For England?
December 22nd, 2013 by G WaldorfBoth captains celebrated their 100th Test appearances at the WACA, but Alistair Cook and Michael Clarke had very different experiences in Perth, and they will go away with starkly contrasting memories. They go away with different problems, too. Clarke heads to Melbourne with all the best problems in the world. With the Ashes regained, Clarke and Darren Lehman face the challenge of keeping their players’ motivation up, and of asking them to maintain the high standards they have reached in the first three Tests.
Alistair Cook, on the other hand, has some serious problems to tackle. The English press have already started the probably-unhelpful but almost inevitable chorus of calls for him and Andy Flower to wield the axe, and there will be senior players who are nervous before the team is announced for the Boxing Day Test. But there are also plenty of pundits questioning the hunger that some England players have for the fight. There were bright spots, though, in the last innings at the WACA, including a maiden Test century for Ben Stokes, and a total that would have kept them in the game if they’d produced it in the first innings. We’re not convinced that there are any Englishmen taking the field in any of these Ashes Tests who aren’t giving it everything, but it’s still hard to see where match-winning performances are coming from.
With all that said, however, the below-par performances of England’s senior players don’t mean that there aren’t some good bets to be had on their performances. In terms of the batting, you’ll see a $3.75 bet for Ian Bell to out-score any other English batsman, but there might still be value in skipper Alistair Cook at $4.50. Then there’s the young guns: both Joe Root and Ben Stokes are at $5.50 to score more runs than any other Englishman over the course of the series. If England are looking to rebuild their side, then there could be good value in the youngsters – they’re the future, and they might be value bets, too…
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