England vs India Prediction: Gill and Root to get to 30 each

Jamie Pacheco previews the 3rd and final ODI between England and India at Lord’s with a start time of 11am on Sunday, July 19, live on Sky Sports Cricket.  

Jamie has gone for two superstar in-form batsmen to get to 30 and is going for two lively outsiders on the India top bowler market. Check out his England vs India predictions below.

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

England

Last time round it was India who made a bit of a mess of posting a decent total, so England were strong favourites at the break when set just 234.

There were a couple of wobbles in the chase, especially when they lost their two openers for 0 and 4. But a match like this was set up for the calm, cool, composed head of Joe Root, who got them home on 99 not out. It was frustrating that he didn’t get his century as Gus Atkinson hit a four for the winning runs to leave Root stranded one short, but that’s not the sort of thing to bother a man like Root.

Will Jacks played his part with 30 runs and a wicket while earlier Jofra Archer took 3-47 andAtkinson 3-50.

England desperately want to win this series, so don’t expect many changes from last time. Liam Dawson has been released to play T20 Finals Day for Hampshire, so that’s the biggest of all clues he won’t feature here.

Likely XI: 1 Duckett, 2 Bethell, 3 Brook (capt.), 4 Root, 5 Buttler, 6 Jacks, 7 Curran, 8 Atkinson, 9 Archer, 10 Mahmood/Tongue, 11 Rashid

India

India will feel they left as many as 40-50 runs out there on a good wicket as they carried on losing wickets to the short ball, something they’ve been guilty of before.

Shreyas Iyer and Virat Kohli at least made 66 and 65 respectively at decent strike rates, but the rest of the scorecard was littered with single-figure scores or starts that didn’t materialise.

Still, every team is allowed a bad day at the office and just like England in the first game, at least they made a decent fist of trying to defend a sub-par total, all five bowlers taking at least one wicket and Gurnoor Brar taking two.

The reason they only used five bowlers is that Washington Sundar was unable to bowl and misses out in this one. Kuldeep Yadav should come in for him, and that will make them a better bowling unit but it does make their tail a bit longer than usual.

KL Rahul didn’t play because of injury last time out but if he’s fit, they’ll probably return to him at the expense of Ishan Kishan.

Likely XI: 1 Sharma, 2 Gill, 3 Kohli, 4 Iyer, 5 Rahul, 6 Dube, 7 Axar, 8 Arshdeep/Krishna, 9 Brar, 10 Bumrah, 11 Yadav

Pitch and conditions

We’re at Lord’s for this one, where the average runs per over is 4.5.

In 2021, England’s 247 was enough for Pakistan, 246 was too many for India in 2022 but England made 311 against New Zealand in 2023, also a winning total. Then England made 312 against Australia in 2024 and also won before South Africa ended their winning run last year after posting 330, which they only just defended.

So the average first innings score has been on the rise these last few years, and you’d think 300 was needed, but again, we thought that might be the case in the first two matches, and neither time did the side batting first threaten to get to 300.

It should be a lovely day tomorrow so no concerns about interruptions or lost overs.

England vs India Odds

It’s 4/5 England and EVENS on India.

If one of the two was around the 5/4, we’d chance them simply because we make this a 50/50 affair, all things considered.

But at these odds, there’s no preference for one or the other, so for the third time running, we’ll leave this market alone.

1 pt Back Joe Root to Score 30+ Runs / Shubman Gill to Score 30+ Runs @ 15/8 9/4

Let’s ask ourselves a few questions here.

Are they both in form? Yes, Root is fresh from scores of 76 and 99, Gill 80 and 31.

Are their career averages above that? Yes, Gill averages a ridiculous 60, Root 50.

Will they get a fair crack of the whip? Yes, Gill opens, Root bats at three, so they’re not going to run out of deliveries in trying to get to 30.

All of which means the biggest threat to your chances could be that Gill gets a peach early on from Archer. But we can live with this possibility and like this bet, especially given it’s been boosted from 15/8 to 9/4.

0.5pts Back Axar Patel to be India Top Bowler @ 9/2

Axar Patel leads the bowling charts for India with five wickets from the first two games, while Shivam Dube took one in each match and came close to a dead heat at a big price in the second before Brar took a late wicket to deny him a share of a payout.

Patel has bowled 19 out of a possible 20 overs; Dube just six in each one, so that’s a bit of a concern regarding Dube.

0.5pts Back Shivam Dube to be India Top Bowler @ 6/1

Dube has always been a bit of a golden arm who takes regular wickets without ever bowling his full quota. Take the fifth T20I last week, where he took two wickets from the only over he bowled and was the top bowler in the process.

At such big prices where we can make a case for both, it’s worth splitting stakes between the two.

Jamie Pacheco Cricket P/L 2026: 

• Points Staked: 40.25
• Points Returned: 45.01
• Current P/L: +4.76