Which West Indies will turn up?

With the one-day series starting on Thursday cricket spread bettors might be wondering whether Chris Gayle's side will actually turn up. Buyers of England's outright test series win index spread would have been delighted with the performances of Strauss and co earlier this month and especially pleased if they had bought player performance spreads of Cook, Bopara or Anderson for the most recent match.

Spread bettors will be aware that the one-day format is much more to the Windies liking and, as they demonstrated in the Caribbean, they possess a number of one-day specialists.

The Sporting Index traders have made England favourites on the series win index with a spread of 32-35pts (10pts per match won, 5pts each for tied match plus 25pt bonus for series win) compared to the Windies' spread of 21-24.

England posted some high innings totals in the tests and Sporting Index's total series innings 300-ups spread of 13-18 (1pt awarded for every run over 300 in any innings in the series) is certain to attract the attention of spread punters.

The one-day scores by either team in the West Indies hardly approached 300, although spread bettors will be well aware that the UK pitches should prove an easier surface for the batsmen.

Sellers of the spread might be expecting an adjustment on the 300-ups downwards after the first match at Headingley though - the average 50-over score in the last three years at the Leeds ground is around 275, and showers are forecast.

Kevin Pietersen will miss the one-day series with an achilles tendon injury, and his big hitting will certainly be missed by buyers of the total batsman 50-ups for the series, currently set at 190-205.

The inclusion of Ravi Bopara in the ODIs, who before his scintillating performances in the two tests would have been dismissed by many spread punters as a one-day specialist, should cheer though.

However, spread bettors looking to buy his individual performance spread for the first ODI at Headingley at 43pts (1pt a run, 10pts per catch, 20pts for a wicket and 25pts for a stumping) might not be aware of his scores in ODIs over the last year. He has scored fairly consistently including three half centuries, but sellers of his performance spread will point out his score of 4 against New Zealand last June and scores of 3 and 1 in India in November.

Spread buyers might also reconsider knowing that in the series in the Caribbean this year Bopara bowled just one over and took a single catch.

Although Gayle has come under recent criticism for his comments on test cricket, he has an outstanding record in the 50-over game. Gayle is ranked the number two batsmen in the world in ODIs, and buyers of his 50-ups series spread, set at 25-30, will be hoping he can repeat his 80 in Bridgetown in March.

Spread bettors may well be split about buying or selling Gayle's series runs spread of 108-118 however. His top three scores from the ODI series in the Caribbean totalled 146; his lowest three, just 22.