2019 Cricket World Cup: Who are the favourites for glory?
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Odds and betting on the 2019 Cricket World Cup
The 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup is fast approaching, with six weeks of the best International one-day cricket action coming from host nations England and Wales this time around.
In 2015, Australia won the 11th edition of the tournament on home soil, beating joint-hosts New Zealand in the final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in front of a record crowd of 93,013.
With the team entries finalised and the fixtures drawn, we take a look ahead at the favourites for the tournament, their form going in and the players that could fire them to glory.
England
As hosts, there’s a whole extra level of expectation and pressure on the shoulders of the English players. But they come into the tournament as 9/4 favourites, and that happens for a reason.
Their poor showing in the 2015 World Cup tournament, where they finished fifth in Pool A with a record of two wins and four defeats from six group games, was put down to a rebuilding job of the ODI side, with England being on top of their game in the long format, but struggling against the top sides in the shorter variations of the game.
After some tough decisions on who to keep and replace, they’ve ended up with a squad filled with specialist players such as Jason Roy, Jos Butler, Eoin Morgan and Joe Root.
Their all-rounders are key to their game, with the top order occasionally falling foul of over exuberance. Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali are the men usually tasked with getting the English batters back on track.
A deep batting order also ensures that they have a squad capable of putting up some big, daunting numbers if put into bat first. But it also gives them the peace of mind that no total is out of their reach, on their day.
Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid and Mark Wood provide a threat to the batting order of the competition, with a good mix of pace and spin in the English attacking line.
India
The Men in Blue turn up for the big events without fail, so it’s never a surprise to see the Indian national side among the frontrunners to win another big tournament.
In their last four one-day international tournaments, they’ve picked up two winners trophies, finished runners-up once and reached the final four in each of them.
Most impressively, the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy win was done so with an unbeaten record, followed by a seven-match win streak in the 2015 version of the ICC Cricket World Cup.
They’ve got a squad packed with experience too, filled with one of the strongest batting lineups in ODI cricket. Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma provide a punchy opening in the batting, backed up by a strong middle order fronted by one of the best in the one day format in MS Dhoni.
In terms of bowlers, their pace attack has experience at the highest levels too. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav have all been around the block and remain competing at the highest levels.
They’ve got spin options in abundance too, with Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin backing up their batting prowess with a powerful spin attack.
They’re 3/1 second-favourites to have claimed the ICC Cricket World Cup trophy come mid-July.
Australia
As the defending champions, you’d be wrong to ever write the Australian’s chances off. They’ve won the ICC Cricket World Cup the most times of everyone, and their squad always seems to compete at the biggest tournaments.
Aaron Finch leads the batting attack for the Australians, and usually get the Aussies off to a great start. If that fails and he needs to be bailed out, then they’ve got Chris Lynn and Glenn Maxwell to fall back on.
Both Maxwell and Lynn are some of the hardest ball-hitters in the game, and can provide valuable knocks from the middle order while also providing a threat from elsewhere on the field.
Mitchell Starc and Peter Siddle may have been around for years, but they still front the Australian pace attack. They’ve got a few of the younger generation breaking through into the side too in the form of Billy Stanlake and Jhye Richardson.
Nathan Lyon and Adam Zampa provide coach Justin Langer with an alternative option in terms of spin, with Zampa covering the right-arm leg break and Lyon bowling with a right-arm off break.
They were knocked out at the group stage in the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy, but they still remain up there as one of the favourites for the tournament due to their experience. They’re 8/1 third-favourites for World Cup glory on British soil.
View the latest Cricket World Cup odds at Coral.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
