T20 Cricket World Cup Betting

Outright Winner

When all is said and done, this is what ICC T20 World Cup betting is all about: making it to the final and getting your hands on that trophy.

If as a punter, you want to focus on the big picture, then this could be the market for you. It helps to research the teams’ historical performances at T20 WCs, the players they have, the leadership ability and cricketing brain of their captain, team tactics, recent results and their T20I ranking. Other important factors are whether the conditions in the country where it’s being hosted will suit that particular side and whether in the first stage of the tournament they’ve been drawn in a strong group, or a weaker one.

Once you’ve gone through all that, you should be in a good position to decide whether the likes of Australia or England are good bets as favourites. Or whether it may pay to go with more unpredictable yet equally dangerous sides like Pakistan or the West Indies, at much bigger odds.

ICC T20 World Cup Top Batsman

Cricket is a team sport but there’s certainly room for individual brilliance within it and if you’re an elite batsman, this is one of the great rewards in the international game to be eyeing up: being the top batsman at the ICC T20 World Cup tournament.

Great names from the past to have won it include Shane Watson, our very own Virat Kohli and Mahela Jayawardene.

This time round the men to beat will include Kohli once again, David Warner, Babar Azam, Jason Roy, Quinton de Kock and Rohit Sharma.

The great thing about this market is that because any one of 15 or 20 players have a chance, prices are never very short on any candidate. As ever, do your research to work out which batsmen have a strong record in that country, are in good form, boast healthy strike rates and averages and that they bat in the positions where you tend to score the most runs. Which in this case means: the Top 3.

Make sure you check out this ultimate top batsman betting guide so you can master this market for yourself!

World Cup Top Bowler

There’s been a theory doing the rounds over the past few years that it’s bowlers who win you tournaments, not batsmen. The elite ones like Mitchell Starc or Trent Boult have a knack for taking wickets at key times or by dismissing the dangermen, while also keeping the runs down.

But when playing this market, it’s just wickets taken that you need to focus on. So you’re much better off going for a proven wicket-taker like Kasigo Rabada who always takes wickets even though he can be expensive, than one like Tim Southee, who is economical but doesn’t take as many wickets.

The crucial metric here is bowlers’ strike rates: the average number of deliveries needed for each wicket they take, throughout their career. Rather like the tournament top batsman market, it’s a wide one open one so you’re sure to get odds of at least 8.0 on whoever you choose to go for.

Other than Boult, Starc and Rabada, other bowlers to look out for are: Rashid Khan, Adil Rashid, Pat Cummins, Lungi Ngidi and India’s Jasprit Bumrah.

Make sure you check out this ultimate top bowler betting guide so you can master this market for yourself!

Match Winner

Chief in popularity among the individual match markets is who’s going to win the game. This is a particualrly imporant when betting on T20 so make sure you understand how it works!

It is of course true that the cream rises to the top and that the more finely-tuned teams with the players boasting the most star quality tend to win more often

But it’s also very true that T20 is the most volatile format where often one big individual performance can turn a game on its head and therefore the form of cricket where upsets happen the most and underdogs prevail more often. Who can forget the West Indies upsetting India in the semi-final of the last T20 World Cup tournament, mostly due to a one-man batting masterclass by Lendl Simmons?

So if it’s ICC T20 World Cup betting outsiders you like, this edition should throw up some good opportunities for you as long as you can make a sensible and well-rationed case for why such an underdog has a shot.

Remember that on the match winner market, you can put your money down before the toss, after the toss, or once the game is actually already underway.

Highest Six Over Total

The first six overs of the innings, also known as the Powerplay overs, are crucial in any match.

Get off to a flyer with quick runs and you’ve got every chance of winning it. But lose early wickets without finding the boundary and you’re up against it.

Betting on which side will have more runs on the board after six overs involves looking at how quickly the opening batsmen (and number three) tend to score and how tight the fielding team’s opening bowlers normally are. Good, accurate, varied bowling is very hard to get away while full tosses and legside deliveries are very easy to score boundaries off.

A combination of use of stats and gut instinct regarding the players is usually the best recipe to making your selection in this market.

This market also has the ‘tie’ runner in it, in case they end up on the exact score after six overs.

Man-of-the-match

Cricketers will all tell you that ultimately it’s team efforts that matter but if there’s one thing that any player worth his salt loves, it’s picking up the man-of-the-match award.

There have been some outstanding individual performances in the ICC T20 World Cup over the years. Shahid Afridi of Pakistan won a few MOMs in the early editions with his leg spin and big lower-order hitting, while Mike Hussey’s winning knock of 60 off 24 balls against Pakistan in the semis in 2010 will live long in the memory.

But those are nothing compared to the fact that Marlon Samuels was man-of-the-match in both World Cup finals he played in, first in 2012 and then in 2016.

Even more so than the top batsman market, there are always attractive odds on whichever player you fancy because all 22 men on the pitch have a chance of being man-of-the-match.

Even the best players of all like Virat Kohli or Ben Stokes tend to be available at odds of at least 7.0. Getting a couple of these right during a World Cup will surely leave you in clover.

How to Bet on the Cricket World Cup

All of our betting partners are focusing on India and the needs and wants of Indian customers so all of them have T20 World Cup betting well covered. After all, that’s our big sport and this is one of the biggest events within it.

To get to T20 World Cup betting markets go to ‘cricket’ and then scroll to find the ‘T20 World Cup’ or ‘ICC T20 World Cup’ as some sites call it.

Some of the outright markets will be available already, others will be added shortly and the matches themselves will also be live to bet on nearer the start of it.

Where to Bet

With such a big tournament around the corner, there is no shortage of betting sites looking for your business. But which ones can you trust? Which have great odds? Which is the best to place bets at?

We’ve done all the research and have written down our findings of each of the best betting sites we’ve looked into, in an honest and transparent way. That means you don’t have to put in the hours or find out for yourself what each of them is all about.

You just need to read our in-depth and unbiased reviews and see which ones tick the most boxes in terms of what you personally are after.

One thing you can count on: if the likes of 10CRIC, Pure Win or Betway are among our list of partners, it’s because they’ve already passed the test of being high-class betting sites.

Another thing worth noting when choosing where to bet is the withdrawal time. The fastest withdrawal betting sites in India are obvious choices because you get your winnings as quickly as possible.

Specific Cricket World Cup Bets

Some betting sites are happy to believe the hype, cut some corners and tip-up what is most likely to happen. But then again, we’re not just any old betting site.

Our thought processes go beyond considering the obvious and our knowledge is deep and discerning rather than just considering the top-line stuff that everyone else is already doing.

The result is that we’ll come up with some unusual bets and a few on obscure markets but we’ll always give you a good run for your money.

After all, winning a certain amount of money on which team will finish rock bottom or who will be top bowler for Afghanistan is worth the same as winning that same amount on who will win the whole tournament.

General Betting Advice

Star players mostly concerned with their own stats don’t win you T20 World Cups. Teams who are the best-balanced, go to battle with the best game plans but who are able to adapt them during the course of the game, are the ones to look out for.

It’s easy to favour the big hitters with the big bats but each game of cricket presents unique conditions and circumstances. So look out for the teams who can play different brands of cricket based on the factors on the day, rather than the one-dimensional sides who can only play one way.

Pakistan v South Africa 2009 World Cup- 1st semi-final.

When Pakistan batted first and posted ‘just’ 149 against an in-form South Africa, it didn’t look like much of a total. But to the cricket connoisseur, maybe it was better than it at first seemed. Maybe in terms of average scores at Trent Bridge in Nottingham, it was about par but it’s worth understanding team strengths and dynamics to see why Pakistan were a good bet as outsiders at the change of innings.

Pakistan aren’t a good chasing side at the best of times and they certainly weren’t back then. And neither were South Africa, however, since that infamous semi-final at the 1999 World Cup where they stole defeat from the jaws of victory, have had a reputation for choking in pressurised run chases.

So a somewhat nervous South African batting line-up were always going to be up against it facing a Pakistan bowling line-up containing ace pacers Mohammad Amir and Umar Gul and spin twins Shahid Afridi and Saeed Ajmal. And so it proved, as Pakistan won by seven runs.

The lesson: work out which teams are stronger at batting or fielding first, assess the score on the board and decide whose shoes you’d rather be in at the break.

The three-wicket rule

Stats show that a side losing three or more wickets during the Powerplay overs lose the game about 90% of the time. It makes sense: not only are your best batsmen generally those at the top of the order which you’ve just got out but losing three wickets so quickly means that the middle-order is under huge pressure, knowing that the loss of one or more quick wickets and it’s virtually game over.

So it could pay to go with a big underdog using Live Betting. If at this T20 World Cup Afghanistan are available at a big price like 3.5 when they have India at 30/3 after six overs batting first, they could well be worth a bet.

Many will think that India will bounce back and win the game one way or another as the classier side but the stats suggest it’s unlikely; so don’t be afraid to go with the underdogs once you see that third wicket go down during the Powerplay overs.

England

Like India, they have a new skipper in Jos Buttler, who succeeded the recently retired Eoin Morgan.

They’re known for their explosive batting with Buttler, Moeen Ali and Alex Hales heading the list of six-smashers and the team looks well-balanced.

But they’ve only ever won once and made a further final on one occasion.

So they’ll have to start turning huge potential into a second World Cup win sooner rather than later.

Get all the analysis for England’s World Cup team as well as winning bets and odds for them!

Australia

When they won last year’s World Cup in the UAE, it came as a considerable surprise because few expected them to even make the semis, let alone win it.

This time they may find things even easier given they’re on home soil and obviously used to their own conditions on fast wickets.

This will almost certainly be Aaron Finch’s last big international tournament while in middle-order ‘finisher’ Tim David we’ll have a chance to see a future world superstar for the first time on te biggest of stages.

Find out more about Australia’s World T20 team for tips and the best T20 World Cup betting odds!

The West Indies

They remain the only team ever to have won two World Cups but you wouldn’t have known it by their inept performances last year.

Packed with too many all-rounders and not enough specialists, they crashed out tamely in the Group Stages after securing just one win in five matches.

Kieron Pollard has since retired from international cricket so Nicholas Pooran is their current skipper and he has plenty of work on his hands to try and improve his team’s fortunes.

But they have talented players in their team and can beat anyone on their day.

Get everything you need to know about the West Indies World T20 team with bet forecast and odds.

New Zealand

Beaten finalists last time out after impressing in the Group Stages, beating England as outsiders in the semis and then losing to Australia in the final. They were a bit unlucky in that they had to chase in the final but performed admirably throughout.

As ever, they’re a close-knit unit who are well-balanced and well-led by Kane Williamson, who may give up the role after this World Cup.

Exciting batsman youngster Finn Allen is one to watch while Trent Boult could as ever be a real star with the ball.

Check out the full analysis of New Zealand’s T20 World Cup team for top betting bets and the best odds!

South Africa

Extremely unlucky to have missed out on a semi-final place in 2021 on net run rate, to England and Australia. They won five out of six games.

But they look a better side this time round and in youngster Tristan Stubbs have a batting superstar in the making.

Their pace attack of Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje is as good as anyone’s, while the spin duo of Tabraiz Shamsi and Keshav Maharaj is also a match for anyone.

They could go very deep.

Find all the latest for South Africa’s T20 World Cup team including the best bets and odds for all their games!

Pakistan

Pakistan were looking like potential winners in last year’s World Cup and were in control of their semi-final against Australia before a Matthew Wade masterclass in the chase got the Aussies home and sent Pakistan crashing out.

They were also very impressive at the Asia Cup but would have been disappointed to lose the final against Sri Lanka.

In Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan they have arguably the best opening partnership in the tournament, while the likes of Naseem Shah, Shadab Khan and Shaheen Shah Afridi have real stardust with the ball.

Whether they can thrive in Australian rather than sub-continental wickets, remains to be seen.

Get the latest Pakistan T20 World Cup team analysis as well as top bets and odds!

Afghanistan

If World Cups were won by the quality of a team’s spinners, Afghanistan would be among the favourites.

After all, in Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Mohammad Nabi, they have three of the very best.

But they’re not won just by spinners and in terms of pace bowlers, they’re considerably behind other sides. Their batting can click some days and can get bogged down on others.

Still, any side with Rashid Khan in it will give you a chance, while openers H.Zazai and R.Gurbaz can on their day get the side off to fast starts.

Sri Lanka

Gone are the days when Sri Lanka were always among the favourites at any World Cup and the retirement of their stars of the past has led to a lengthy recovery process from those absences.

But a recent change of policy to blood more youngsters at the expense of out-of-form senior players paid dividends at the recent Asia Cup, which they won as big outsiders.

They’ll need to go through a qualifying campaign first but they should make it through and another surprise showing isn’t to be ruled out.

Get the latest Sri Lanka T20 World Cup team analysis as well as top bets and odds!