Toss and team news carnage

Daily Result: £446.86

Got caught with my pants down today in the Sri Lanka v Australia game. I guess anyone who bets on cricket knows the toss can effect the market. So it's good to get the toss news as quickly as possible and bet accordingly. Which is what I did today as usual. Jumped in when Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to bat and market moved my way. Nice green. Smiles all round.

Until of course, the Sri Lankan team news was annouced maybe 20-30 seconds later. Malinga still out. Well, I knew that. But Murali and and Vaas both out too! Being rested or "injured". I'd not been so quick to pick up on the team news and the market suddenly swung massively against me as the proper shrewdies sprung into action. Afterall, it meant the Lankan's 3 top bowlers were out. I went from a nice green to a bad red in seconds before I realised what the hell was going on! Always best to keep calm and think clearly in these situations so I simply dumped everything I was still holding, thought about it for about it for a few seconds more and decided the market still had further to go. So completely reversed and rode the market back into green. Even then I got out way too early though and ended up backing back a lay of Lanka at low 3.x in the high 3.x range before it went to around 4.5/4.5. Similarly I got out of the reverse backs of Australia at 1.46 and 1.47 too early in the mid 1.3 range when they went as low as 1.28 before the game got started.

Still, a lucky escape really. Not been caught out like that before. Doesn't matter how much you think you know there always seems to be another way you can do your bollocks if you're not careful. And today I discovered another one to watch out for!

The match itself was a bit of an anticlimax. Not surprising after the team news. The Lankans got off to an ok start causing the Aussie price to drift but three quick wickets soon slowed the run rate down and the odds corrected. A fantastic 4th wicket partnership of 140 between Jayawardene and Silva pulled the game back for the Lankans, costing me money as I screwed the trading up for that part of the innings, before a comical collapse at the end, which included 5 wickets for 17 runs, left the Sri Lankans on 226 all out.

With the Sri Lankan second string bowlers on show, and several Aussie batsmen in fine form, the run chase was never really in doubt. Obviously the Lankan's needed to keep it tight and take early wickets. 11 runs off the first over set the tone though and the Aussie price plummeted. Bounced around a little with wickets later on but the result was never really in doubt after a good start to the chase and they ran out 7 wicket winners with more than seven overs to spare.

All in all a bit of a disappointing match really. Another nice profit so can't really complain as that's what it's all about. But I was expecting something a little more competitive until the team news was announced. Anyway, tomorrow is South Africa v England with the winner likely to make the semi-finals. With everything to play for there should be full strength teams out and hopefully we'll get a cracker of a game to both watch and trade.