Cricket tips: Day two betting update
No recommended bets
After a pulsating opening to the 2025/2026 Ashes, England are now 8/15 with Sky Bet to win the first Test in Perth.
It’s hard to know where to start. At around 6am on Friday morning, England’s Ashes hoped appeared to be in tatters as they succumbed to a catastrophic batting collapse and were bowled out for just 172.
Harry Brook top scored with 52, and there were promising hands from Ollie Pope and Jamie Smith, but England appeared to have shot themselves in the foot with a series of poor shots and few could’ve predicted what was to come.
Just over a session later and England now find themselves in control of the Test match, Australia limping to 123-9 at the close.
England's five-man pace attack produced a superb, relentless comeback with the ball, and though Ben Stokes finished with five wickets, much credit must go to Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse.
As predicted, the Perth pitch was spicy, with just enough movement off the surface, and good pace and bounce which Australia, in particular, couldn’t cope with.
It could be a tough summer for that ageing home batting line-up if England’s fast bowlers can stay the pace across the next six weeks.
Nevertheless, with the locals suggesting this pitch will flatten out in the next few days, as it did for last year’s Test match here against India, Australia won’t think they are dead and buried only 49 runs behind.
And this is Bazball after all. There is no guarantee that England apply themselves any better on Saturday, with the culture shock coming from Lilac Hill, where they played the Lions last week, to tackling the pace and bounce of the Optus Stadium clear to see.
I’m just not convinced England can be fully trusted with the bat 24 hours later, and another low score could be in the offing, for all anything sub-200 might be pushing it this time.
Our pre-match bets on No Australia fifty in the first innings (14/1) and for Jamie Smith to hit the most fours in the match (33/1) are in decent shape. The former is all but weighed in, and Smith is currently leading by one, though the pessimist in me notes his inferior second innings record compared to his first innings performances in Test cricket.
One man with a fine record in the second innings is Joe Root and Sky Bet have nudged him out to 9/2 to win the second innings top England batsman market.
Root averages 54.62 in the first innings, and 46.51 in the second, which isn’t much of a drop-off at all, and he actually has more fifties (35) in the second innings than in the first.
He copped a brute of a delivery from Mitchell Starc on Friday, so I wouldn’t be too quick to criticise, though he didn’t make many runs against the Lions last week, or indeed on the recent white-ball tour of New Zealand.
I can let this one go on this occasion, especially with plenty of bets running for us across the series and for this game, though I’ll be interested to see those second innings England runs lines.
As always with this England team, day one proved to be a manic day for trading, with the tourists hitting a high of 6.2 on the Betfair Exchange and a low of 1.55. At the time of writing, the tourists have settled at 1.63 to win the match.
One would assume that day two can’t be as high-octane as the first day, but I wouldn’t bank on it.
With this England team, absolutely anything could happen.
Posted at 1345 GMT on 21/11/25
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