India vs England Prediction: Two 4/1 picks for the 1st ODI in Nagpur

India host England in the first of a three-match ODI series on Thursday in Nagpur with a start time of 08:00, the match being broadcast live on TNT Sports 1.   

Jamie Pacheco showed an excellent profit in the recent T20I Series and is looking to replicate his form in the longer format, opening up with twin 4/1 picks as he takes us through his cricket preview and those India vs England Predictions...

*You can check out all of our Cricket Odds over at betfred.com

India    

India can be pleased with their work in the T20 Series, doing the basic rights by hurting England with spin and using the conditions to their advantage.  

Arun Chakravarthy, twice a winner for us for top bowler honours, impressed so much with his off spin, being Player of the Match in two of the five games and taking 14 wickets across them, that the Selectors have included him in the ODI squad. So he could be in line for his ODI debut at the ripe old age of 33 but probably not in the first match.   

Elsewhere, there are returns for skipper Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Rishab Pant, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer and Yashavi Jaiswal. They can’t all play, so it won’t be so easy predicting their line-up.   

There's no Jasprit Bumrah so Mohammed Shami continues his comeback, with Arshdeep Singh (normally a T20 specialist) and Harshit Rana the pace options.   

Possible XI:  Sharma, Gill, Kohli, Iyer/Rahul, Pant, Pandya, Jadeja, Axar, Arshdeep, Shami/Rana, Chakravarthy/Kuldeep.   

England  

The best England can do is put that 4-1 hammering in the T20I series behind them and move on.   

The return to fitness of Jofra Archer was a big positive but his fitness will likely be further tested here as he’ll need to bowl plenty more overs so it’s unlikely he’ll play all three games.   

Brydon Carse continued to impress and should keep his place while Mark Wood is another that will need to be used sparingly.   

The big boost might however be the arrival of Joe Root, fresh from scoring a mountain of runs in the SA20 for the Paarl Royals as an opener. He also bowled extremely well, very often bowling all four, so that’s certainly another string to his bow, especially in what are likely to be spin-friendly conditions.   

Phil Salt had a poor T20 Series but will probably keep his place alongside Ben Duckett because Jos Buttler doesn’t seem to like to open much in this format and there isn’t another natural opener in the squad.   

Possible XI: Duckett, Salt, Root, Brook, Buttler, Livingstone, Bethell, Carse, Archer, Rashid, Mahmood/Wood.   

Pitch and conditions   

Nagpur has been used for nine ODIs over the years but just two were in the last eight years, so we’ll focus on those.   

In 2017 India chased Australia’s 242 with ease with a superb 125 from Rohit Sharma after Axar had been the pick of the bowlers with 3/38. Two years later against the same opposition, they just about defended 250 after Virat Kohli hit a superb century that time. That day it was Kuldeep Yadav who took three wickets.

So we can see 250 might be about par here and deciding what to do at the toss won’t be too straightforward.   

India vs England 1st ODI Odds

India are 4/9, implied probability of 69.2% with England 7/4, which is 36.4%. So pretty much exactly what we’d expect the odds to be.   

India’s biggest challenge here might be rustiness among the batters with pretty much all of their Top 5 not having played international white-ball cricket for a while. The likes of Rohit and Pant could go out and look like they’d never been away or they could be a bit out of sorts and take time to adjust and play themselves in.   

What’s far less of a concern for them is the bowling with just about everyone having featured in the T20I Series and the likes of Axar, Chakravarthy and Arshdeep bowling extremely well throughout.   

Root is a big positive for England but it’s hard to see Rashid getting a lot of support with spin bowling duties and that might cost them, whereas we’ll have to wait and see just how aggressive they’ll be with the bat.   

Either way, our policy of not getting involved with the match winner market paid off in the T20I Series as we showed a healthy profit without resorting to it, so for the time being, we’re doing the same.   

England Top Batsman   

Another market we’ll leave alone for the time being is the India Top Batsman one, until we at least know who's playing, let alone get our heads around who’s batting where.   

It’s far easier and more sensible to make a case for Jos Buttler in the Top England batsman market at 4/1.   

For starters, he was the only batsman who showed any consistency in the T20I series, with scores of 68, 45 and 24 before ending with a couple of single-digit scores.  

He’s played plenty of ODI cricket and IPL cricket in these parts before and is likely to bat somewhere in the middle-order. Sure, that means facing plenty of spin in those middle overs but he’s well-suited to that and may be dodging a bullet by not batting higher and getting to avoid Arshdeep and Shami with the new ball, who are normally good for a couple of wickets between them in the first 10 overs.   

Respect is shown towards 4/1 Duckett and the returning Root at 3/1 while Livingstone will win one of these days at a fancy price (he’s 11/1 here). But batting at seven looks a tad too low with not much in the way of support to bat with down the order, so we’ll swerve him to and go with the main man.   

Top India Bowler  

Sticking with the theme of not over-complicating things, sticking to what you know and putting your money on tried-and-trusted players and we give you...Axar Patel.   

He was a 4/1 top bowler winner for us in the 2nd T20I in the only time we backed him, so is in our good books. But here's what we also know about him: he almost always bowls his 10, has a strong record of 64 wickets in 60 ODIs and has had good success here in Nagpur in the past as we said already, taking 3-38 against Australia a few years ago.  

He bowls straight and targets the stumps while going after him can prove costly because of his variations of pace. All in all, he's got a lot going for him as a 4/1 chance.

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket and European Football 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...