England vs Afghanistan Betting Tips

England vs Afghanistan Winner Prediction

Recommended Bet: Back England to win @ 1.5 (if they reach that) in Live Betting with Betway.

England are 1.15 and that looks about right.

If the wicket is spinning, Afghanistan can live with England but if it’s a quick track, they can’t.

And if it’s a high-scoring match England should have far too much firepower for a somewhat flaky Afghan batting line-up.

So the stars would need to really be aligned for there to be an upset here.

Probably the best you can hope for is that Afghanistan bat first and get to say 50-0 and put England under pressure.

There’s absolutely no guarantee you’ll be able to get 1.5 on England in Live Betting. But if they reach that, back them then.

And if you haven’t read it already, here’s our Betway review.

England Recent Form

Since making last year’s semi-final, which they lost to New Zealand, England have changed both coach and skipper.

In comes Matthew Mott to coach the side, while Eoin Morgan was replaced by Jos Buttler as captain, which was the somewhat obvious choice.

Buttler will have his hands full leading the side, keeping wicket and opening the batting but he’s more than capable of doing all three.

Ben Stokes has been parachuted into the side after playing almost no T20 cricket for a year, while star bowler Jofra Archer is still absent with a long-term injury.

Jonny Bairstow broke his leg in a golf accident a few weeks ago and Eoin Morgan is retired from international cricket.

Reece Topley is also out of the tournament after picking up an injury in training and that’s a significant blow because he’s been taking lots of wickets.

Liam Livingstone is recovering from an injury himself but may start the tournament on the sidelines with Stokes preferred to him for the time being.

Since last year’s semi-final defeat, England have played 20 completed matches and won 10 of them, a pretty poor return by their standards.

That included Series losses in the West Indies, and at home to both India and South Africa.

But they’ve been better over the last month, beating Pakistan 4-3 away and securing a 2-0 win over Australia last week, the third match being rained off.

Afghanistan Recent Form

Afghanistan made it out of their group at the Asia Cup, aceing low chases against first Sri Lanka and then Bangladesh.

But they then found the next round a little too hot to handle, losing all three matches to Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India respectively.

It’s been clear for a while that their strength lies very much in their bowling where Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Mohammad Nabi provide excellent spin options. Fazalhaq Farooqi and Naveen Ul-Haq are pretty decent in the pace department.

But their batting can be a bit flaky and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to bat Rashid Khan at five or six, let him be as aggressive if he likes and look for some quick runs that way.

The worst that can happen is that he gets out after a couple of balls with little harm done but it’s worth the risk because he’s probably their best boundary-hitter.

At the time of writing, they’ve played just the one warm-up match since the Asia Cup so may come into this a bit rusty.

England vs Afghanistan Head-to-Head

The England v Afghanistan head-to-head shows England are 2-0 up.

That’s not a big sample at all of course but though they are both regulars at World Cups, it’s not often the Afghans play the biggest sides outside WCs.

To make that head-to-head a little more irrelevant, they haven’t played each other since England defended 142 at the 2016 World Cup.

Their other game saw England post a huge 196 back in 2012 and bowl Afghanistan out for just 80.

Venue & conditions

It’s with remembering that Perth Stadium was revamped and completed in early 2018, which is why there have only been two international matches played there.

Back in 2019, Pakistan managed just 106/8 with Australia making a mockery of that total by chasing it without losing a wicket.

But just last week England made a mockery of that total themselves when scoring 208 against Australia and only winning by a margin of eight runs.

So two very different matches that don’t shed much light on what the par score might be.

But it would be no surprise if the team winning the toss decided to bat first.

There’s about a 15% chance of rain so there’s an outside chance of a few overs being lost but the forecast in Perth isn’t nearly as bad as it is for Australia v New Zealand in Sydney.

So the smart money is on there being a full game with this one.