Twenty20 cricket started being played professionally in 2003, when the England and Wales Cricket Board, ECB, launched a new tournament in an effort to spice up the domestic county games. T20 was marketed in a manner that allowed spectators to come home from school or work and watch a good game of cricket from start to finish in a matter of hours.
This also allows for quick fire betting, and laying wagers on these games has seen many a punter make a pretty penny.
You Can’t Get Too Much of a Good Thing
What was begun as some fun for domestic players quickly became a cash-cow for a number of international star athletes: when India managed to win the first ICC World T20 which took place in 2007, the format was launched in the world’s wealthiest cricketing nation. In 2008 the IPL, or Indian Premier League, was born, and the game was changed forever.
Big Money, Great Glamour, and a Sprinkling of Glitz
Traditional 1st class teams have since been replaced by franchises for a considerable percentage of various nations’ domestic cricket schedules. The success of the IPL and the franchise-based system it made use of has lead Australia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the West Indies and Zimbabwe to set up their own, each with varying degrees of success. Ironically, the only missing nation is the one which founded the T20 cricket betting format: England.
Top Betting Strategies and Tips
While a many good cricket players perform excellently across all the formats, most will reserve their best games for their perfect formats and conditions. It is very possible for a player to be unstoppable in 1 format, and perform only mildly well in others.
- Get to know players, their sets of skills, their preferred formats, and their ideal conditions.
- Teach yourself you to read how a pitch will play, and what the chances are that it will deteriorate. The conditions of a pitch are pivotal, and being able to read these is one of the most important parts of more successful betting. The pace of the pitch, how much aid it offers bowlers, and how quickly it gets worse will have a massive impact on the match’s outcome and the total inning, as well as on the players themselves.
- Understand how the weather impacts play. The overhead conditions will not only determine whether or not a match will occur, but also the way that game will play out. If, for example, there is a lot of cloud cover, swing bowlers will enjoy the benefits, and batting totals will more than likely be a lot lower.
- Expect the unexpected, like dramatic turnarounds, and don’t let yourself be deterred from taking big prices. In-running drama is one of the hallmarks of Twenty20, with upsets at enormous odds occurring regularly. In these games draws frequently trade extremely short before the pitch abruptly deteriorates, and teams will often not manage to chase down seemingly easy targets.