Spin pursuit of Cardiff clues

The sense of anticipation ahead of Wednesday's first Ashes Test in Cardiff will, if you will excuse the boldness, be felt more keenly in the household of the cricket spread punter.

Just like the purists who start to salivate on the arm of the sofa at the prospect of Andrew Flintoff charging in at Ricky Ponting or Mitchell Johnson's 90mph swingers, the bettor is enticed but slightly more so at the prospect of his judgement of the action proving superior to that of the bookmaker.

That is the attraction of betting in a nutshell. Proving you know more than the bookie is a heady feeling, which is one of the reasons why there is such a clamour to find out what the state the Cardiff pitch is in. Will it spin? Will it be quick to favour the fast men? Will it be slow-paced to ensure five full days?

Sporting Index have an inkling. They make Australia marginal favourites on their win index, offering the tourists at 11.5-13 (25 points for a win, 10 for a draw and zero for defeat). England are 10.5-12 - rarely have they been so short in Ashes battles.

So do you think they are right or wrong? To give you a helping hand it is possible that the importance of spin may have been overplayed at Cardiff. In the three County Championship matches on the ground this season, only 21% of wickets have fallen to spinners.

It is a statistic which suggests that England would be wrong to pick two spinners while Australia's Nathan Hauritz, who couldn't turn a page judging by his performance in the England Lions game last week, might be spared the indignity of his tour average of 102 spiralling into the stratosphere on the biggest of stages.

Thanks to the reports of a twirler's paradise, Sporting are expecting heavy trading on each spinners' bowling index (10 pts for a wicket, 25 bonus for a five-wicket haul). Graeme Swann is priced at 37-42 and Hauritz at 27-32.

The beauty of spread betting is that we don't have to make up our minds about the pitch before the toss. We can watch, wait and then wait some more before firmly deciding that the wicket will spit and bite, or not, to play into the hands of England or Australia.

And if you have already put down your money, don't fret. All in-running markets allow you the opportunity to close your bet at any time. This includes a win index so if you have gambled on Australia and they have started well by reducing England to say, 30 for 3, then you would be able to trade out of your bet for a guaranteed profit.

Likewise, all batsmen will be given a runs quote for each innings which will move with the scoreboard. If you fancy that Kevin Pietersen is going to build on an Ashes average of 53 you would buy and then spend the rest of his innings on the edge of the sofa.

Make no mistake that when such a wager comes off it is one of the most satisfying feelings known to man. When your chosen batsman passes the runs quote that you bought at you can sit back and experience the quite extraordinary sensation of him winning you money every time he takes a single of an inside edge, comes back for two or strikes a boundary.

It explains why sometimes when you have been at a cricket match the bloke sitting next to you celebrated like he won the lottery when a batsman had innocuously tucked one of his hip.

Of course it would be irresponsible not to note that things can go awry. This is one of the most troubling feelings known to man and explains again why a different bloke started sobbing uncontrollably when a batsman innocuously tucked one of his hip straight into the hands of square leg. However, it is another advantage for us punters over the purists: there is something riding on every ball.

When having a batsman's runs bet, it would be wise to check each man's record at the venue because so often good or bad memories can play a part.

Andrew Strauss and Paul Collingwood's match runs (note these are different to individual innings runs quotes in the respect they are not traded in-running) are quoted at 73-80 and 58-65 respectively. Both have reasonable first-class records there with Strauss averaging 66 with one century and Collingwood 35, including being dismissed for 99.

But those figures pale into insignificance compared to the Australians. Michael Clarke (65-72 match runs) averages 109 in Cardiff with one century, Michael Hussey (68-75) 106 with two centuries and Marcus North (50-56) 135 with one century.

Enough talk. Let battle commence.