India v England Prediction: 4/1 Sky and 3/1 Adil no Rash picks

It’s England v India on Thursday, June 27 (15:30, Sky Sports Cricket) as India and England look to book their place in the final as they clash on the spin-friendly wicket of Providence.

James Pacheco is siding with two real champions of this format to do the business under the utmost pressure at 4/1 and 3/1 respectively as he takes us through his India vs England Predictions...

India

India are unbeaten in this tournament, one of only two sides (South Africa being the other) who can lay claim to that. That includes easily beating an impressive Afghanistan, a USA side that caused others plenty of problems, old rivals Pakistan, and more recently, the ever-dangerous Australia, who they helped to knock out.

But that’s not to say all is well. Virat Kohli has been a disaster at the top of the order and though now isn’t the time to lose faith in him, you just don’t expect him to rock up and score runs here, either. Shivam Dube hasn’t been the explosive middle-order hitter they were hoping for, while Ravindra Jadeja has had a quiet tournament by his standards.

On the other hand, the bowling looks very solid. If spinners Axar, Jadeja and the wicket-taking machine that is Kuldeep Yadav don’t get you, pacemen Jasprit Bumrah and Arshdeep Singh probably will and this is one of those bowling attacks where there’s little respite for batsmen because there’s no real weak link.

They should remain unchanged here, meaning Kuldeep carries on keeping Mohammad Siraj out of the side.

Possible XI: Sharma, Kohli, Pant, Sky, Dube, Pandya, Jadeja, Axar, Kuldeep, Arshdeep, Bumrah.

England

They may have lost twice already but they’ve won when it matters, their big win over the USA ensuring they’re in the semis. They’ll be feeling relatively confident knowing those losses are in the past and that they’ve been here before and know how to get over the line.

A whirlwind knock from Jos Buttler last time out was important because he remains their key batsman and needed an innings like that to get back on track.

Chris Jordan took a somewhat cheap four wickets last time out but they’re a better side with him around given his experience and the fact he’s probably the team’s best fielder, which could make a big difference.

Adil Rashid continues to be miserly in terms of conceding runs and always seems to take wickets, so he could be their most important player on the day. Moeen Ali has been used somewhat sparingly with both bat and ball so let’s see if this is the match he makes an impact.

Possible XI: Buttler, Salt, Bairstow, Brook, Ali, Livingstone, Curran, Jordan, Archer, Rashid, Topley.

Pitch and conditions

It’s been ages since we were at Providence, over two weeks, in fact.

The Windies posted 173/5 there against Uganda and bowled them out for just 39.

Before that, Afghanistan scored 159/6 here against New Zealand, in the end winning by a big margin of 84 runs.

There’s not much to go on here other than to say that spinners Akeal Hossein (5 wickets in a match) and Rashid Khan (4) were among the wickets, so the spinners will enjoy themselves here for sure.

Both teams may prefer to bat first and let scoreboard pressure and tight spin bowling do the rest.

India vs England Odds

India are 8/13, England are 5/4. Sure, India deserve to be favourites given what we’ve seen from both sides so far this tournament and the odds look about right.

If the match comes down to who has the better spinners, which it may well do, then it’s them who hold the trump cards.

23 T20Is between the two have yielded 12 wins for India and 11 for England so things are pretty tight between the two over the years. It may well be pretty tight again and with no real angle, we’ll leave the main market alone.

India Top Runscorer

My first instinct here in this market was that Hardik Pandya could be a decent bet at 12/1.

He’ll bat at six and if there are early wickets, he’ll be bang in contention with his fearless approach and ability to punish most bad balls. The downside is he may not get that chance if the India top order are a bit more patient or if England aren’t disciplined with the ball.

So instead, I’ll go to the well once more with our old friend Sky Yadav. He’s their third-highest runscorer with 107 and has top-scored for them twice already with knocks of 50 and 53 against the USA and Afghanistan respectively.

At four, he should have a decent hit and with Kohli so badly out of form he may just have skipper Rohit and Pant to beat. He likes playing England, too. In seven games against them, he scored a century and averages 45.66 so he should come pretty close.

England Top Bowler

For England we can’t ignore the claims of Rashid, especially since we’ve seen that it’s been the spinners doing the damage here in Providence.

Not the most exciting bet to be on the 3/1 favourite but as we always say, he ticks all the boxes: joint top-wicket on nine (alongside Jofra Archer), will bowl his four, the wicket should suit him and he’s nothing if not highly experienced.

In a match like this it’s best to go with a man who’s seen and done it all before so he should be bang in contention.

*You can check out all the latest Cricket Odds from all the matches Betfred cover over on betfred.com

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket for us at Betfred Insights. You can check out his Cricket Betting Tips, along with those from the rest of the team, at our Cricket hub page...