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First Test: England v Sri Lanka Cricket Betting Tips and Betting Odds
England will have to do without their captain Ben Stokes due to injury, so Ollie Pope takes charge of the bid for back-to-back series wins. Read our Test Match betting tips preview below
After beating the West Indies 3-0 through July, England will be confident of achieving a similar result against Sri Lanka under the temporary leadership of Ollie Pope.
The tourists may have won three of their last four series, but their victories have come against Ireland, Afghanistan and, most recently, Bangladesh. The latter, they beat 2-0 away from home in late March and early April.
Here’s a look at the best cricket betting tips ahead of the first Test from our collection of the best betting sites and the best betting offers available on the market.
England v Sri Lanka Cricket Betting Tips
England v Sri Lanka Betting Tips Preview
Check out our England v Sri Lanka betting tips below for Wednesday’s first Test.
Sri Lanka haven’t beaten a leading Test nation - ie, Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa - since beating South Africa 2-0 away in early 2019.
I would expect England to win this series pretty comfortably, though honestly would be nervous in backing a 3-0 correct series score purely because of the weather. A couple of days rain, and you could well be stuffed.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a great deal of value in the pre-series markets, with England being 1/16 to win it outright.
Roooooootttttttt!!!!!!
Joe Root has got an excellent record against Sri Lanka.
In 10 Tests, he has totalled 1,001 runs, passing 100 on four occasions. That includes scores of 200, 228 and 186.
I would be taking bet365′s 5/6 on the former captain to score over 81.5 runs in the match.
I’ll come back to Root in a second, but there are a couple of other bets to give you.
First, betway are offering an eye-catching 5/4 - via their Player Props section - on England wicketkeeper-batter Jamie Smith to hit at least one six in the match. He hit five in his first three Tests against the West Indies last month.
Betfair’s 12/5 on Sri Lankan left-arm spinner Prabath Jayasuriya is also a price I’d be keen to side with for him to be his team’s top first-innings wicket-taker.
He has taken a remarkable 71 wickets in 12 Test appearances since debuting in mid-2022, including seven hauls of five wickets or more. Emirates Old Trafford takes turn, so he could well thrive.
He also claimed five wickets in the first innings of the warm-up defeat against the England Lions at Worcester last week.
Back to Root, who plays spin well and is 3/1 to score a century in either innings of the match. He was England’s leading run-scorer in that recent West Indies series with 291, and that’s a price I’d be keen on.
And to finish, bet365 have Sri Lanka’s lower middle order batter Kamindu Mendis at 15/2 to be his side’s top run-scorer in the first innings in Manchester.
Mendis has only played three Tests, but he has scored 428 runs in them at an average of 107. The left-hander has posted scores of 61, 102, 164 and 92 not out in five innings, including a debut against Australia in July 2022.
He won’t be batting at seven for long if he continues that sort of form!
It would be no surprise to see him forced into a recovery job from 50-4 or 60-5. So he’s well worth consideration for a couple of quid.
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