Day 1

300-odd for 4 is what I'd describe as a normal first day of test cricket, but perhaps one of the reasons why it is difficult sometimes to lose money betting on cricket is the short-term horizon that punters seem to possess. If you wind back the clock four years to when the South Africans played at Kennington Oval, the Saffers ended the first day 362-4 yet ended up eventually losing (badly, by 9 wickets). There are countless other examples.

I'm not complaining. I'm also not suggesting India will lose, they are in the box seat but much will depend on factors other than performance such as overhead conditions (there was a time yesterday when it clouded over where the ball seemed to swing a bit more) and how much the pitch will deteriorate. Questions that cannot be answered ahead of time, and why keeping an open mind in test cricket is fundamental.

England were a bit lucky to take 4 wickets - 2 of them were shocking umpiring decisions and if you throw in Jaffer's brain explosion you can make a case that England only took 1 wicket all day. Yet one or two wickets early on Day 2 and they'll have their noses in front, so it's not yet time to write them off. I quite liked the way the Indian batsmen (apart from Tendulkar) showed intent - the run-rate was above 4 for a large part of the day, so I have reasonable confidence we'll see a result. But (here comes the open mind again), you can't write the draw off either.

My post-toss prices were England 3.3; India 2.6; Draw 3.1 - with the score a fairly normal looking 316-4 I wouldn't change them much - at a rough guess England 3.7; India 2.4; Draw 3.1. Yet the Betfair market has England 7.4; India 2.86 and the Draw 1.92 (immediately post-toss they were 3.1, 3.65 and 2.42).

So a common situation occurs - the draw will trade far too short for the duration of the test.

Betting-wise, I laid England prior to the toss, for two reasons: one, I felt their price was a little short, and two, there was not much downside - if they won the toss and batted they would shorten but the price of the team batting has the least volatility so there would be plenty of time to go to Plan B. If India win the toss and bat their price would drift (but not as much as I was expecting), and the only way to get in the crap would be if India got rolled cheaply, but the pitch and weather conditions suggested that was unlikely.

I don't wait too long to start backing them at higher odds to cover the arse a little (the open mind philosophy), and that coupled with the draw lay is about all I did. I've learnt over the years not to unnecessarily tinker and just let the game develop and reassess at important points during the game (which for me are end of day, change of innings and taking of the new ball).

Day 1 Bets:

Laid England 150 @ 2.70 (Eng -255, Ind +150, Draw +150)
Progessively backed England for 50 @ at an average of 6.1 (Eng 0, Ind +100, Draw +100)
Laid Draw 100 @ 1.80 (Eng +100, Ind +200, Draw +20)

Nice to end the day in a no-loss situation, but no doubt that will change as I get greedy :)