Captains tipped to lead the way

After leading his side to a whitewash in the one-day matches, Australia captain Ricky Ponting is now tipped to perform with the bat in the Super Test © Getty Images

Adam Gilchrist may have been Australia's hero with the bat in the one-day series, but the gifted left-hander is just seventh favourite to be his side's top scorer in the one-off, six-day Test against Rest of the World. Opening batsman Justin Langer tops the list at 7/2 (4.50) alongside his captain Ricky Ponting, while Gilchrist is 7/1 (8.00) to top score in the first innings. Opposing captain Graeme Smith. like his Australian counterpart, heads his team's betting.

As you all know, picking a winner in these markets is automatically made more difficult by the fact that all the bookmakers list the prices for the first innings only, but the only good thing about that is that you can be sure all the batsmen are trying their absolute hardest to score as many runs as possible, and that the match situation does not really play a part in their thinking.

Langer and Ponting cannot be split at 7/2 but it's asking an awful lot of Langer to come in fresh and make runs at the highest level. That said, his average in Australia is even better, at 50.72, than his overall mark, and it's just below 49 at the Sydney Cricket Ground, venue for Friday's match. And in his last 20 matches, perhaps a better indication of form, he's averaging almost 55.

Ponting is likely to receive plenty of support, and so he should as he has a stunning record at the SCG, where he averages almost 75. The ground is a little smaller than most of the Australian Test grounds, and its intimate nature clearly suits Ponting.

As with Langer, it's a tough task for Matthew Hayden, who was out of touch for much of the Ashes tour, to come in and get runs, and 4/1 (5.00) looks very skinny to me, particularly as his average of 46 at the SCG is well below his overall mark.

Michael Clarke has inexperience against him but he's hugely talented and, like Simon Katich, will be playing on his home ground so should take plenty of confidence from that. He is an 11/2 (6.50) chance, while Katich, who has a phenomenal average of 127 in his two Sydney Tests, looks decent value at 6/1 (7.00). Gilchrist is next, at 7/1 (8.00), which could prove to be a good price given his superb form in the one-day matches. He averages almost 60 at the SCG, and if his confidence is up, he'll love the short boundaries.

Dravid and Boucher the value
Picking the likely top scorer in the Rest of the World side is almost more difficult than before the one-day series. With Brian Lara and Jacques Kallis clearly out of form, I couldn't advise anyone to back either of them. Of course, it wouldn't take much for players of their class to come good, but at 4/1 (5.00), neither of them represent any kind of value.

Captain Graeme Smith, also a fine player, is joint favourite with Lara and Kallis, but that seems very harsh given the fact that he will have had very little time to acclimatise, a factor which will also go against Inzamam-ul-Haq, a 5/1 (6.00) chance. Regardless of how good you are, it's never easy to just turn up and perform. Andrew Flintoff may be unsettled slightly by the knock to his wrist, and it's conceivable he may not even play, given how close England's tour of Pakistan is.

Of all the Rest of the World batsmen, Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag, both at 9/2 (5.50) make most appeal. Dravid is one of the world's very best batsmen, and seems to love playing in Australia. Dravid averages a phenomenal 58 in Tests, and an even more amazing 64.72 in Tests in Australia. The fact that he is not a showman will also help, as he can take his time over his innings - in a six-day format he may never get out! Sehwag, on the other hand, is a real shotmaker, and he looked in great form in the last two one-day matches. When he gets in, he tends to score big hundreds too, and he averages 58 abroad, which is pretty impressive, to say the least.

One other possibilty to consider here is that it's more than possible that Australia's bowlers rip through the Rest of the World line-up, in which case it might be worth looking at the likes of Mark Boucher and Shaun Pollock. Boucher, a 16/1 (17.00) shot, averages 30 and has four Test hundreds to his name, while his compatriot Pollock has hit two centuries and has a slightly higher average.