Two teams, England and New Zealand, who have never won the ICC Cricket World Cup, have reached this year’s final.
Yes, they did it by beating Australia and India, the powerhouse teams that have won it more than anyone else.
England stunned Australia to win by all of eight wickets in one semi-final on Thursday. New Zealand edged table-topper India by 18 runs in the other.
Neither England, the host nation, nor New Zealand will have enjoyed their journey to the final. Both were so erratic, their places in the semi-finals were anything but certain before they squeezed in.
But here they are. They’re ready to put a new name on the list of Cricket World Cup winners at famed Lords on Sunday.
And once more the home nation is the favorite just as it was at the start of the Championship.
England consistently best 1-day team in recent years
At that stage, England had been the consistently best international 50-overs cricket team for the past four years. That was before it stumbled in the World Cup’s 10-team league battle, much in the way New Zealand did.
On Thursday, after their semi-final triumphs, New Jersey’s outright odds for the final were all pretty similar.
FanDuel, the State’s sports betting market leader, had England at -350 as against +245 for the Black Caps. PointsBet and 888sports odds for England were respectively, -334 and -335 and +250 and +260 for New Zealand.
Most of New Jersey’s 14 sportsbooks were offering scores and scores of proposition bets. Man of the match, the team to hit most sixes, and the top batsman and bowlers in each team were among the bets on offer.
They were not quite as unanimous about the Man of the Match award as they were about the winner. They mostly favored the same men but in different combinations.
Place your ICC Cricket World Cup Bets Here
English batsmen top contenders for Man of the Match
FanDuel’s top three picks were all England batsman. They are Jason Roy (+750), Jonny Bairstow, also a standout wicket-keeper (+800) and Joe Root (+850).
Resorts Casino’s sportsbook, on the other hand, had Bairstow on top at +875. He was followed by Root and NZ’s No 1 Batsman, Kan Williamson. Both were being offered at +900.
PointsBet also favored Bairstow as its No 1 (+750), but preferred Root (+800) to Williamson (+900).
If England is tipped to win on Sunday, it is for some pretty sound reasons. Not the least of them is the statistical fact that they’ve been the strongest 50-overs team in international cricket for some time. They also thumped New Zealand earlier in the tournament.
But there is more to it than that. The way they have shrugged away fears of an early exit and come hammering back into the final has been most impressive.
Their confident, well-balanced team is flying, both in the batting and bowling departments. Their supporters are cheering. They should be a hard team to stop on Sunday.
