Betting On The Ashes Being Better With Bomb Tech? Only Australia

I realize that for some of you beyond the cold dark waters of the Atlantic Ocean the world of Cricket is a strange, mysterious thing that seems to defy all sporting logic with an bizarrely incomprehensible scoring system, teams that wear almost identical outfits and a baffling array of technical terms that frankly sound ridiculous. This is all, of course, entirely true, but if you want to bet on sports in the US there's no reason that should stop you betting on the Ashes.

The Ashes is one of the more daft trophies in the world. A cup that only two nations compete for is just a mite self serving, and whilst the World Series at least has various teams involved, the Ashes comprises of a series of games between England and Australia, nations twixt whom there is a distinct amount of what the media call “friendly rivalry” and everyone else thinks of as borderline pathological hatred. Well....okay, that might be over selling it......but only just.

The Next Ashes Tournament at Betfair Sportsbook

• Australia @ 4/7
• England @ 7/2
• Draw @ 15/2

The Australians think the English whingers (a charge few of us could deny in court), whilst the English think the Australians are just a little too full of themselves for people who live on a large desert island on the wrong side of the planet that's too hot and covered in animals that can kill you. You could, if you so wished, indulge in some betting on the Ashes using these two stereotypes alone, it would make as much sense as some of the predictive methods touted by gamblers in the years since 1882 when the tournament began.

Few major sporting tournaments can trace their origins back to a sarcastic article written in a newspaper, but when Australia hammered England at The Oval in London in 1882 The Sporting Times published an obituary pertaining to the death of English Cricket claiming the “body will be cremated and the Ashes taken to Australia.” This led to the press dubbing the next year's fixture a quest to return the Ashes and the name stuck. This sort of thing couldn't happen now, if only because today's media would call it “Ashes Gate” and that sounds like something you need to look up on the Urban Dictionary not play in white clothes.

Betting On The Ashes From Beyond The Pond?

With such a massive long running “friendly rivalry” between the two sides no one is ever betting on the Ashes being a genteel affair. Sledging, the art of putting the batsman off his game by talking crap at him when you're the wicket keeper or other nearby player, is commonplace and when at the crease (ready to be bowled at) every batsman should expect a certain amount of harsh commentary on their life from just behind them, and may need to return fire (as it were) as the need arises. Some examples are barely more than school boy insults however some are quite amusing.

“I can see why you're batting so badly,” Dennis Lillee of Australia would tell the chap at the crease idly, “you've got some shit on the end of your bat.” Whereupon the batsman would invariably look at the far end of his bat to see what the Australian was talking about, at which point Lillee would pipe up “Wrong end, mate.” Such are the ways of Cricket. It might look ridiculously staid on the outside, but under the surface it's prison rules, why'd you think they wear the pads? “So how's your wife and my kids?” asked Rod Marsh of famous all-rounder Ian Botham during an Ashes match, the Englishman replied, without missing a beat, “Wife's fine. The kids are retarded.”


Betting on the Ashes solely based on who you think might be the more insulting, coarse and rude team is just as valid as trying to work out what either of the teams should be doing at any one time, why they keep changing ends every seven balls and why it goes on for five whole days stopping for lunch and tea during the days. Indeed if you're gambling news coverage of the sport will help you understand it, guess again, Cricket commentators are as incomprehensible as the sport itself even if they're talking sense, which often they're not.

Australia Use Guided Missile Technology To Train For Ashes

Betting on the Ashes commentators saying something stupid is like betting there will be a basket scored at some point during next year's NBA finals. Get a bunch of people in a studio and ask them to talk for five days and at some point, no matter how expert and professional, one of them is going to say something wholly ridiculous, this is even more true of the radio commentary on Test Match Special famed for wandering off the topic, particularly if it's raining and there's no actual cricket being played.


Imagine the Super Bowl is abandoned at the last moment next year due to security concerns, and instead of showing a movie or an old game to replace it the TV just kept the program going without the sport with all the talking heads and pundits just filling up the air time with anecdotes, strange topics of conversation and chatting about the things members of the general public have sent to them in the post, how long into the second hour would one of them say something they'd have to apologize for later?

Naturally most of those betting on the Ashes will be from Australia and England, but there's a reason you should take advantage of US gambling laws to bet on this distant tournament at Betfair etc, the Australians have started using guided missile technology to train. That's right, with nanotech monitoring their every move the bowlers from down under hope to perfect themselves to beat the English at their own game. England, meanwhile, will probably just rely on bad weather limiting play, and some good old fashioned sledging to keep the scores low. You'll have to wait to find out which wins out.