Minnows battle it out in trader's dream

Daily Result: £388.73

I'd been looking forward to today's game for a while. It "should" have been India v Pakistan, one of the cricket world cup marquee matches. And one of the few games that was sold out in advance. Instead we had Bangladesh v Ireland. The two surprise Super 8s qualifiers maybe. But a match with equally as much pride at stake. And one that would see Ireland receive an official ODI ranking if they won. It was set up to be a trader's dream and it didn't disappoint.

To be honest I had Bangladesh down as the winners at the off and backed them in the high 1.3x range on the toss news making a few ticks. It appeared a strange decision for Ireland to elect to bat with the moisture in the pitch. By the start of the play they were trading in the low 1.3x range and during the first over they went as low as 1.26. Crazy price. Whether I fancied them to win or not they weren't a 1.26 shot so I layed and mentioned it on the Betfair forum. It was like a huge overreaction to previous matches. Sure there was bounce in the pitch but seemingly not as much movement and the price soon rebounded a little. Most unusually I actually managed to lay at the lowest price they were matched! Hardly ever achieve that. :-) While I usually like to just ride the market momentum there comes a point when you just have to oppose it and somehow I managed to get it spot on today for a change. :-)

Anyway, a few wicketless overs later and the pitch wasn't looking too bad. The decision to bat was starting to look like a good positive one and the Bangladesh price continued to drift despite huge resistance. It just seemed to take a while for the market to realise that Ireland might actually post a competitive score - despite the fact that the 92 they put on for the first wicket was an Irish record. I guess the market was just wary of a then moderate run rate and the 3 Bangladeshi left arm spinners.

Anyway, the Irish plan of not losing early wickets paid off later in the innings. Despite some stupid run outs they still had enough firepower left at the end of the innings to up the run rate and post a more than reasonable 243. Especially when you consider the highest successful run chase this world cup is 248. And that was by Australia. Yet still Bangladesh were 1.8ish shots. Though they did drift during the innings break a little.

I levelled out green during the innings break. With the prices as they were it was always going to be a volatile market for a large part of the run chase and wow, were we not let down! In one over alone around 1/3rd of the way into the chase the scoring went . 3 4 6 wd wd and by then the Irish price had drifted 35 ticks and I'd wiped around £150 green from both sides of my book!

For maybe a 20 over stretch trading was not for the feint hearted. The trouble was although they were losing wickets for a long time Bangladesh were up with the run rate - or keeping it manageable. A classic situation for maximum volatility. As Bangladesh scored the Irish price drifted quickly. But as the wickets fell the Irish price plummeted. Very volatile. And very dangerous to get involved with. Great if you get it right. Wipe out time if you get it wrong. Me? I bottled it! Especially after that 35 tick loss in less than one over!! I protected my green and kept it pretty even. Nicked a few ticks inbetween balls (the market was so volatile you could nick 5 ticks just doing that!) chose when to stay in a little longer very carefully and basically waited until one side got a little more on top. It was a great opportunity to make a lot of money. But there was also a danger of losing a lot. Quickly. I prefer consistent small / medium wins to inconsistent big wins and big losses and so tempered my trading accordingly. But well done to those with balls bigger than mine that got stuck in and cleaned up! A little later I saw someone get £250k matched (Over £500k traded) at 1.31. Next ball there was a wicket and price crashed to 1.1. Nice work if you can get it!! :-)

Aside from recognising the volatility and trading accordingly perhaps the biggest lesson to pull from all today's market madness is provided by the fact that it was such an interesting trading situation. By that I mean the required run rate versus the wickets remaining. There comes a point no matter how "manageable" the RRR sounds you have to question the ability of the batsmen left to do it. For me it became "unmanageable" when Iqbal, and more importantly, Ashrafal, went. From memory the rate was still around a run a ball. Even under. Very achievable. But who was left to bat? All the main guys were gone. But it seemed the market caught on slowly and the Irish price continued to drift alarmingly until each wicket fell, even though the RRR started to climb until it did finally get clearly out of reach. Picking that point, where the RRR looked achievable but infact was out of reach, was really the key to the second innings once I'd run scared from the volatility. And it's the point where I started to get involved more heavily again once I thought we'd reached it.

Anyway, in the end Ireland ran out comfortable winners by 74 runs. But for a period in that second innings it was an absolutely cracking match to watch and trade. Bangladesh, with their dropped catches and questionable shot selection, will feel they perhaps should have done better. But you can't take it away from the Irish. After their mauling by Australia they bounced back, showed their resilient team spirit again, deserved the win and secured an official ODI ranking.