Cricket World Cup 2019: best bets as tournament starts to gather pace despite trouble with weather

Who among us could have possibly foreseen that the vagaries of British weather would play havoc with the Cricket World Cup?

So far four games have been abandoned, three without a ball being bowled, and only England, Australia and Afghanistan have been able to complete all their scheduled matches. The longer the poor weather persists, the higher the chance that a team deserving of a semi-final place will miss out because they have not had the chance to pick up the necessary points through a lack of games.

That being said there is still plenty of balls to be bowled and sixes to be struck for the rest of the tournament.

This column advised three bets before the start of the tournament with varying degrees of success.

The outright selection, India, are unbeaten and have shortened into 5/2 to win the World Cup despite their match with the West Indies being rained off on Thursday, but they still look to face huge opposition from the hosts (15/8) and Australia (3/1)

The ante-post portfolio has taken a hit with the news that Indian batsman Shikhar Darwan will miss most, if not all, of the round-robin stage after fracturing a finger in the win over Australia.

Advised at 20/1, Darwan was going well after hitting 117 against Australia and was well placed.

As it stands, Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan heads the top batsman standings with 260 runs after three matches but David Warner is now favourite (5/1) to pick up that award.

Pakistan’s Mohammed Amir has taken ten wickets in this tournament so far and can still be backed at 7/1 to finish the World Cup as the leading bowler. But, with Pakistan outsiders to progress to the latter stages, better value could be found with Australia’s Pat Cummins (6/1) who has taken nine wickets and India’s Yuzvendra Chahal (7/1) who has claimed six scalps and played one game fewer.

Best bets
Yuzvendra Chahal 7/1 Top World Cup wicket taker

Price available with Coral. Odds may be bigger with other firms