Cricket: England’s ICC World Cup hopes in need of winning boost against India

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England meet India at Edgbaston, Birmingham on Sunday 30 June in a potentially crucial game (particularly from an England perspective) in the ICC Cricket World Cup group stage.

At the time of writing, the four teams in pole position for the semi-finals are New Zealand, Australia, India and England, but Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan all still harbour hopes of qualifying for the knockout stage.

Going into the tournament, England and India were the favourites and second favourites respectively to win the ICC World Cup.

India have, despite only narrowly avoiding a shock defeat to Afghanistan, largely justified that faith in them to date and look well set for the last four as things stand. It’s not been such plain sailing for host nation England though and they may well need to beat India if they are to keep their World Cup ambitions alive.

One Day Internationals (ODI’s) are incredibly popular with the cricketing public and a game between not only the two pre-tournament favourites, but the host nation and a country where the game of cricket is absolutely huge will be essential viewing given what’s at stake.

Photo credits: Newsd.com

This game will also be massive from a cricket betting perspective and given the magnitude there will undoubtedly be a wealth of cricket betting offers available from the bookies. In addition to a straightforward bet on the outcome of the game itself between the two teams, there will also be dozens of other markets available, such as top run scorer for each team, highest opening partnership and number of sixes.

There are plenty of factors to take on board when betting on cricket that don’t really apply to other sports, with winning the toss and the conditions of the pitch and the weather all being potentially crucial to the outcome of any given game. Although these issues aren’t quite as important in ODI’s as they are in Test Match cricket, they still have a part to play in deciding the outcome.

Luckily there are websites available that provide betting tips that, along with analysis of the key batsmen and bowlers for both teams, will also cover weather and pitch conditions and a multitude of other factors that can give their readers an edge when it comes to betting on the game.

The pressure of the World Cup on home soil appears to be getting to England in the last couple of games against Sri Lanka and Australia, so Sunday’s game against India is one where they will need to show great strength of character.

There’s no doubting the talent in this England line-up, particularly in the batting, but India are also an excellent team who would love to pile the pressure on Eoin Morgan’s beleaguered troops.