Cricket Player Bets

There are as many tastes and preferences as there are people. So it is quite normal for some fans to watch only football matches, others basketball, and so on. When it comes to online sports betting, however, few sports can match cricket, which offers the opportunity to bet on a myriad of markets, ranging from simple outright bets to markets that require profound cricket knowledge.

Player bets are an exceptionally engaging market category because of their variety and because they are not subject to the same forecasting principles as other conventional types of bets. For this reason, player bets are sometimes referred to as exotic bets that put emphasis on individual players’ performance rather than that of a certain cricket team. What makes them even more interesting is that whether your bet succeeds has nothing to do with the final outcome of the match or tournament. A player can be the best-performing batsman even if his team fails to win.

Top Batsman

The Top Batsman bet is a top choice for betting aficionados who wish to wager on cricket star players. For this market, punters need to predict which batsman, regardless of team, will score the greatest number of runs during the match. The usual favorites in this category are Babar Azam, Aiden Markram, Rohit Sharma, Dawid Malan, and Quinton de Kock. Since they are often expected to post the highest run totals, wagering on them will not add a significant amount to your bankroll because of the low odds.

To properly assess which player is most likely to get the highest score, several factors need to be taken into consideration:

• Current form of all participating batsmen.
• Performance level of opponents’ bowlers.
• Batting position – top order, middle order (upper and lower), and tail-enders.
• Type of wicket – bowled, caught, leg before wicket, hit wicket, hit the ball twice, run out, stumped, timed out, handled the ball, or obstructing the field.
• Type of pitch – green, dusty, or dead.

Each of these indicators varies in importance depending on the cricket format being played. For example, the batting position is of utmost importance in a T20 match, since opening batsmen have a massive advantage over everyone else. So, it makes little sense to bet on a lower middle-order player to score the greatest number of runs. However, this does not apply to longer Test matches, where sound technique and adaptability to field conditions come to the fore. If two or more players manage to score the same number of runs, whether they are from the same team (Top Batsman) or from both teams (Top Match Batsman), they will be classed as a dead heat. If you have placed a bet on such a player, you will be paid at half the listed odds; if three players finish level, you will receive one third of the potential payoff, and so on.

Top Bowler

In terms of popularity, the Top Bowler bet comes right after Match Winner and Top Batsman, especially for punters who are confident in their cricket knowledge and prefer betting on individual players. When placing a Top Bowler wager, betting enthusiasts are basically predicting which player will take the most wickets in a particular innings of a match, which is why it is also called a Wicket-Taker bet.

The cricket bat and ball are in constant battle, with the batsmen trying to score as many runs as possible for their teams, while bowlers do their best to stop them and take wickets as quickly as possible. Betting rules for the Top Bowler wager are simpler in T20s and ODI matches since teams bat only once. So you only have to decide which of the proven bowlers will take the greatest number of wickets in the first (and only) innings. As it is possible for two or more players to finish with the same result, the dead-heat principle described above applies again. Many online bookmakers, however, try to reduce the number of such cases by also taking into account how many runs the respective bowlers have conceded. Let’s look at an example and imagine you are betting on “New Zealand Top Bowler.” If Kyle Jamieson and Tim Southee both take three wickets but Jamieson concedes 38 runs compared with Southee’s 25, Jamieson will be considered the top bowler.

In Test matches, punters may be offered the opportunity to place a Top Bowler bet within the second innings, most often in the form of a live betting market. Despite this feature, not all online cricket sportsbooks include it in their portfolios, so you had better check the available betting markets before funding your account and placing your bets.

Betting on who will be the top wicket-taker is a wager category for which it is not a good idea to look only at the overall statistics for a particular player. Bowlers like James Anderson are almost unbeatable on home soil, and backing him in a match played in England is a wise decision. His results outside his home country are not as solid, however, and you should think twice before backing him in a match conducted in India, for example. Among other factors to consider are the pitch type, the particular cricket format, and the venue.

Man of The Match

It is time to introduce a cricket player betting market that is not as straightforward as the ones already described; this is what makes it especially intriguing and a great way to put your knowledge of the sport into practice. What makes the bet difficult to predict is its subjective nature, which cannot be reduced to dry statistical data.

For a player to be declared the man of the match, he needs to have an overall outstanding contribution to the game, a combination of scoring winning runs, taking wickets, and positively impacting the other cricketers on the field. Let’s look at the betting odds currently provided for a match between the West Indies and England.

The bookmaker has listed two batsmen, an all-rounder, a bowler, and a wicket-keeper in the first five positions, which proves the complexity of this type of cricket bet. Another interesting point is that, according to the odds, both team captains have very good chances of becoming Man of the Match. This is logical, given that their responsibilities include communicating with every teammate and making sure each player is doing his job, which in turn leads to great overall team performance.

The most attractive aspect of Man of the Match betting is the lucrative odds it offers. As you can see from the table above, even if you bet on Joe Root, who has the lowest odds, a stake of $10 will give you a profit of $55, which is not bad at all. It is also worth mentioning that the Man of the Match award goes to a player from the winning team in almost 100% of cases. This observation aligns with the data above: most of the players in the table represent England, and England is the match-winner favorite with odds of 1.9 compared with 3.6 for the West Indies.