When: Thursday 15 February, 9:30am IST
Where: Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot
Watch: Sports 18 and Jio Cinemas
Best Odds: India 1.44, Draw 10, England 3.8
This marquee Test series is evenly poised at 1-1 after, despite being challenged for a great portion of the match, an undermanned India led by Ravichandran Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrah bowled England out for under 300 twice to build upon the platform set by Yashasvi Jaiswal’s 209.
Rajkot’s first Test since 2018 will likely see one of these two nations take a 2-1 lead to Ranchi, though there were plenty of runs on offer in its only Ranji Trophy game of this season when Saurashtra declared on a mammoth 578/4 following 243 from Cheteshwar Pujara.
Understandably, cricket betting sites have once again given some very long odds to a draw not only because England’s ‘Bazballers’ have played out just one rain-affected draw in more than 20 games during the McCullum-Stokes era, but the result in Vizag means 22 of the last 24 Tests on Indian soil had a winner.
Whilst England had Jack Leach ruled out of the rest of this series, so too did India with Virat Kohli because of his ongoing personal issues, whilst KL Rahul was also not cleared to be fit and the condition of Ravindra Jadeja was not yet known at time of publication.
Given they also left Shreyas Iyer out of the squad, It could mean India go in with as many as three debutants (Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Devdutt Padikkal) as well as three other players (Jaiswal, KS Bharat, Rajat Patidar) with less than ten Tests’ experience.
They’ve played so many games in the following eight years that they probably don’t even remember it, but the English trio of Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow have Test experience in Rajkot that they can offer to their teammates for perhaps a little bit of intel.
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Considering the devastating spells and match-changing wickets Jasprit Bumrah is producing in this series, we simply cannot believe how low gambling sites have set his over/under mark for total wickets in this Test.
It seems that the market cannot, either, for the price has been reeled in significantly from the standard odds of 1.83, but it is nonetheless likely to be a profitable play in our opinions.
Across three different countries, Bumrah has collected at least five match wickets in each of his last five Tests in which India had to bowl twice.
Perhaps most encouragingly, a lot of Bumrah’s wickets in this series have been some of England’s best batters, confirming he’s not just relying on bowling to the lower order and tail for his success.
Bumrah has already dismissed Ben Stokes (2-11), Joe Root (2-1) and Ollie Pope (2-23) twice in this series, with those head-to-head numbers underlining his dominance.
Prediction: Jasprit Bumrah over 4.5 match wickets – 1.72 @ Luckster
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This time we’re going in the opposite direction of the general market, taking an even money price offered by many Indian cricket betting apps for Shubman not to clear the boundary.
He did so twice during his splendid second innings in Vizag, but beyond that Gill had struck just one six across his 17 prior Test innings, and that was during his only other century in that period (128 v Australia in Ahmedabad).
Interestingly, Gill averages 61 in innings in which he scores a six and less than 18 when he doesn’t.
Furthermore, he has registered a six in just 11 of his 41 innings for a tally of 15 sixes. That’s an average of 0.37 per innings and a success rate of 27% when it comes to hitting a six in a Test knock.
So on that basis, if you fancy him to add to his tally, you’re probably better off chasing the value and backing him to score a half-century instead!
Prediction: Shubman Gill under 0.5 sixes – 2.00 @ Luckster
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All eyes are on Rohit Sharma’s batting after a lean series so far in which he has produced a top score of just 39 and has been dismissed by four different Englishmen (Leach, Hartley, Bashir, Anderson).
There’s not much that he could have done about the Anderson peach that knocked over his stumps, but he has fallen into a couple of traps along the way that suggest England have had his measure.
Just a few months shy of his 37th birthday, he’s naturally going to attract questions from far and wide about whether he’s “still got it” against the red ball, and his eight innings stretch without a 40+ run score across the South Africa and England series is attracting some rightful criticism.
The pressure will be applied even more as he looks to prop up an inexperienced middle order, but there’s enough recent history, in addition to Rohit scoring 80+ match runs in just four of his 11 Tests against England, to take the unders with confidence.
Prediction: Rohit Sharma under 79.5 match runs – 1.83 @ Luckster
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