Australia vs England Prediction: Starc could be pretty in pink at Brisbane

Jamie Pacheco previews the much-awaited Second Test between Australia and England, which will be played at Brisbane from Thursday morning onwards, the match starting at 04:00 UK time and broadcast live on TNT Sports.  

Jamie is leaving the match winner market well alone again, instead focusing on the Australian top bowler and England top batsman markets as we go through his Australia vs England Predictions for the Second Test...   

*You can check out the Cricket Odds from all of our Cricket Betting markets over on betfred.com

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Australia  

No Pat Cummins or Josh Hazlewood, no problem.  

Mitchell Starc and Travis Head did most of the heavy lifting, the former taking 10 wickets in the match and Head hitting a brilliant century in that successful fourth-innings chase that could have otherwise been a tricky one. Starc's ten wickets put him in an excellent position to be Australia's top series bowler after being tipped up here at 6/4.  

But Australia may have got pretty lucky in that chase. Usman Khawaja was suffering from back spasms and on both occasions didn't open the innings. Though Marnus Labuschagne didn't make the most of his chance with just nine the first time around, Head certainly did. Had Khawaja opened and got out early, it would have put serious pressure on Head and things may have turned out very differently, but I guess we'll never know.  

Cummins is still supposedly unavailable for this one, but there's a strange situation going on where he isn't the squad, yet has been training and hasn't been ruled out from playing. We'll have to wait and see, but my gut instinct is they won't risk him yet, especially now that they're 1-0 up.   

Then again, they may feel it's worth risking Cummins and that if they go 2-0 up, they can do without him for a couple of matches after that. Who knows?  

But Josh Hazlewood is still out. As is Usman Khawaja, who still has back spasms. It's pretty obvious Josh Inglis will come in, but whether he opens or bats at 5 with Travis Head opening, remains to be seen.  

England  

We could be here all day discussing the merits (or otherwise) of Bazball and the brand of cricket England want to play.  

Everyone will have their views on the matter, but one thing is for sure: when the going gets tough and 'ugly runs' are needed, that comes from buckling down and putting in the hard yards, England's batsmen seem to think it's all a bit too much effort for their liking.  

Still, they did a few things well in the Test, and had Head not had his day in the sun, they may have been 1-0 up rather than 1-0 down.  

Zak Crawley is under pressure after yet another couple of failures with the bat, and he can consider himself pretty fortunate to keep his place, for the time being, at least.  Joe Root, of whom so much was expected, didn't go well either, but Ollie Pope looked in decent touch, and Harry Brook hit a good first-innings fifty.  

There's no Mark Wood, though, who is injured, meaning Will Jacks (already confirmed) will come in for him.  

It's a slightly wishy-washy selection. You can see why they want to lengthen their batting, and Jacks will do just that, but if it's not doing much in terms of spinning, we shouldn't expect him to be putting the Aussie batsmen under too much pressure.   

Pitch and conditions. 

Bad news for England ahead of the match at Brisbane: Australia won seven in a row here between 2013 and 2019. Slightly better news: India won here in 2021 chasing just over 300 in the final innings and perhaps more surprisingly, so did the Windies last year in a day-night Test, just about getting over the line in defending 215. 

As we know, batting under light is the trickiest time to do so, but it's actually not a bad wicket, so 300 could be manageable first up if batsmen apply themselves and deal well with the swinging pink ball. England can take some positives from the fact Australia's record at Brisbane hasn't been great of late, but that applies more to day Tests, not day/nighters.  

Match Winner odds 

Australia are 1/2, which is implied probability of 66.7%. That's not a bad price for a team with such a good record at Brisbane, especially under lights, and who showed far more stomach for the fight in the First Test than England did.  

The absence of Wood isn't to be underestimated, either. This is more of a track for the swingers than the pacers, but he could have been dangerous here, nevertheless, as the fastest bowler from across both teams.  

I certainly wouldn't want to be backing England at 9/5, but we'll swerve the price on Australia, too. England may find this pitch more to their liking in terms of batting than Perth, or better still, for their chances of winning, that they learned some lessons last time out.  

*For all the latest and live Australia vs England Second Ashes Test Odds then head over to betfred.com 

Top Australia Bowler   

I've waited a fair few months to back Mitchell Starc for top bowler honours in the first innings of this day-night Test at Brisbane and I'm not changing my mind about backing him anytime soon.  

Cricket lovers will know only too well that he's the top bowler in the world in pink ball Tests and by some distance, with 81 wickets. His raw pace and ability to swing the ball both away from the right-hander and into the pads could be kryptonite for England. Add to that the likely absence of Cummins and definite absence of Hazlewood, and that Starc was on fire with ten wickets at Perth, and you can see why 9/4 is a perfectly good price.  

Even more so when you consider that the 9/4 with Betfred is considerably bigger than what other bookies are laying. Sky Bet and PaddyPower go just 11/8, Boylesports and Betway 6/4.  

Top England Batsman  

Though Ollie Pope was guilty of chasing a wide one in the second innings, he made scores of 46 and 33, looked in good touch, and crucially, looked like he was happy to put in the effort required when batting in the top order in Test cricket.  

As it happens, he didn't top score in either innings, with Brook (52) in the first innings and Gus Atkinson (37) in the second, denying him top bat wins.  

But that means his price of 13/2 has held up. That's almost twice as big as that of Brook (10/3) and more than twice that of Root (14/5), for example.  

We have Pope for Series Top batsman for England at 8/1 so this may seem a bit like putting all our eggs in one basket. In a way it is, in another way it's picking a batsman at a big price who bats up the order and was probably the pick of them last time.  

We will, however, have a 'saver' on Jamie Smith at 9/1. If Starc and Boland rip through England's top order, a rescue act from Smith, good for his 33 off just 22 in the first innings last time, may come into play.  

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