Fletch Batters The Bookies

Firstly let’s examine my strategies in the magazine piece titled ‘Cash In on the Ashes’.

I suggested laying England at 3.7 or lower for 3pts. They got as low as 1.77.

Then I suggested backing Australia at 3 on the exchanges if they started badly. They were bowled out in 40 overs for 190, their price went out to 3.22 and they still won comfortably.

Next I advised a trade around Glenn McGrath. Back Aussie, lay the draw and/or lay England whenever he comes on to bowl. On Thursday he took 5 wickets for 12 runs in 9 overs. Goodness that is big profit.

Also I suggested laying the draw, saying ‘honestly if you don’t lay the draw when these two sides play in the Ashes, then you never will.’

Those basic strategies should have us all laughing to the bank. I also advocated a buy of Warne’s wickets at 23 and with 6 in this match he is ahead of schedule and a sell of Strauss runs which is looking in good shape.

The ‘buy Gilchrist runs’ bet suffered but I did caveat it by saying accept the loss if he gets 0 but enjoy the ride if he gets in. I will continue with this one in the other matches but will have staggered sells to profit-take at about 30 runs, and 70 runs to leave me a small part of the buy until he is dismissed.

For the in-running tips on the InsideEdge website, we laid England at 5.0 and traded back at 14.0 within 90 minutes at the start of Australia’s second innings.

Also at this stage I mentioned the draw was too short at 9.6 and we should look to start laying it.

My other big bet was backing Australia outright at the start at odds of 2.04. They had not lost at Lord’s since 1934 (and still haven’t). It was a massive price and with all the other bets should have given us a massive win.