James Buttler of the Cricket Badger Podcast looks ahead to the third England v Sri Lanka Test match and finds the best bets at The Oval from Friday.
England move to the Oval hunting a 6-0 clean sweep over West Indies and Sri Lanka this summer. We landed the 3-0 against West Indies and the 3-0 over Sri Lanka is looking good, with the visitors' batting continuing to be a little bit shaky.
And, success in the second Test. Joe Root to be England's top scorer at 10/3, tick. Kamindu Mendis to top score for Sri Lanka at a crazy big 13/2, tick. Chris Wokes missed out on being the leading England bowler in the first innings by just two runs conceded, but with those two successes, we got good profit from Lords. So let's go again...
Joe Root - a genuine legend
Let's go with Joe Root again. Now the leading run scorer on English soil, his twin hundreds at Lords, the first time he's done that in a Test, were absolutely supreme. He's now only 23 runs behind Sri Lankan great Kuma Sangakkara in sixth in the all-time test run scorer charts. And he's 95 runs off fifth-placed Sir Alistair Cook as the leading English test run scorer of all time.
It would be daft not to go back in on the Yorkshire legend to top score again at 7/2. He's averaging 91.57 across the five tests played this summer and, if he breaks Cook's record, he could easily also land the Player of the Match market too at 10/1. Sentiment often plays a big part in adjudicating that award.
Kamindu Mendis looks born to score Test runs
When something is working, go again. When I put up Kamindu Mendes to be the top Sri Lankan batter in the second test, it was partly the price, partly because he looks the best batter in Sri Lanka's team. The bookies don't seem to have noticed his success. His price to top score is still the seventh in the Sri Lankan list and that's just crazy from what we've seen this summer. In from 13/2 to 6/1, it remains the way to play the Sri Lankan batting.
Opposing the Sri Lanka openers has proved successful
With Sri Lanka's average opening stand in the series a meagre 10.75 for the first wicket, it looks a decent 4/7 on England's openers outgunning them for the fifth straight innings.
James' Best Bets for the third Test
Joe Root to top score for England in 1st innings at 7/2
Kamindu Mendis to top score for Sri Lanka in 1st innings at 6/1
England opening partnership to be highest at 4/7
Good luck with all of your bets and, as always, please gamble responsibly. I'll be back with some more cricket soon because England have got a whole host of white ball matches to play against the Aussies. I'll see you then.