How to Bet on Cricket Online with Betfred

With Test Cricket, the Hundred, the County Championship and the upcoming T20 World Cup, it feels like there is a non-stop stream of cricket action to get stuck into right now. Over the summer months in the United Kingdom in particular, cricket takes centre stage, and although the famous Ashes doesn’t return until 2025, there’s certainly a whole lot to enjoy this year. 

Now a lot of people reading this will be familiar with cricket betting, the terminology, and how it works, but with the sport still attracting news fans, here at Betfred Insights Education, we’ve put together this article to explain how to bet on cricket online. Below you can find an explanation of a series of cricket betting markets, helping you to stay fully-informed while watching the cricket this year. 

You can find all of our Cricket Betting Odds here.

Sports Welcome Offer

New customers only. Deposit via Debit Card & place first bet £10+ (1/1+) on Sports in 7 days. £30 Sports & £20 Acca Free Bets within 10 hrs of settlement. 7-day expiry. Eligibility, payment excl. & T&Cs Apply.

Sports Welcome Offer

New customers only. Deposit via Debit Card & place first bet £10+ (1/1+) on Sports in 7 days. £30 Sports & £20 Acca Free Bets within 10 hrs of settlement. 7-day expiry. Eligibility, payment excl. & T&Cs Apply.

Outrights

The outright markets are simple enough, you are simply picking the team you think will win a competition, either before, or during, the event. If you fancy Nottinghamshire to win the T20 Blast you can back them to do so, or if you think the Oval Invincibles will win the Hundred, you can add them to your betslip. 

These can be combined into multiples, or accumulators, which will only be settled as a winning bet if every single one of your selections wins. Alternatively, back your choice as a single, but remember, they have to win the entire tournament for your bet to be a winner. You can usually back outrights well in advance and Betfred has a load of tournaments already priced up, including the 2025 Ashes. 

Match Winner

When focussing on one particular match, the most popular market is the ‘match winner’. It’s an easy one to understand, just pick the team you think will win the match, and if they do, your bet will be settled as a winner. In short-form games, you can pick a winner but in Test matches, you are also able to back a draw for specific matches, if you think there won’t be a winner over five days. 

A good tip is to check the weather for those Test matches, especially the ones played in England. We’ve seen days lost to the rain which often makes a result one way or another difficult to achieve, so a draw could be a sensible selection in those cases. For the most part however, just pick the team you fancy, just as you would in football, and hope they get the job done. 

Top run scorer

The following two markets allow you to show your knowledge of the sport of cricket. If a batsman or batswoman is in particularly good form, or has a great record at a particular ground, you can pick an individual to be the top run scorer for their team. 

In short-form games such as T20, where each side bowls 20 overs each, this is simple as each team only bats once. If your selected batter outscorers the rest of their teammates, then your bet will be settled as a winner. In longer-form games, we usually see this market broken up into innings one, and innings two, so the same rules apply. Your batter just has to outscore the rest of their teammates, and you don’t need to worry about the score the other team posts. 

However, in Test series, there will often be a market for top run scorer across both teams for the entirety of the series. In that case, you need a consistent batsman who is in-form, and is guaranteed to play every single Test. Their cumulative total will be compared against the rest of the players, on both sides, and you will need them to outscore everybody over the course of the series.

Top wicket taker

The same market applies for the bowlers, this time in terms of taking wickets rather than scoring runs. If you back a team’s top wicket taker, they must take more wickets than the rest of their teammates to win the bet. 

Remember, in cricket, bowlers are credited for wickets when they have bowled the delivery that dismisses the batter - even if they don’t get them out by bowling them directly, or via LBW. For example, if Joe Root bowled a ball that Ben Stokes caught, the wicket would go to Root and not Stokes. 

This market is also a chance for you to show your expertise, as bowlers tend to go through purple patches of form. Unless of course you are Jimmy Anderson. His purple patch lasted nearly 20 years. 

Again, in Test series, this market will often extend to both teams, and across all matches. The top wicket taker will be the bowler who takes the most wickets taken across all the games.

Most match sixes

Another pretty self-explanatory one here, but this one is a team selection. Whichever team you think will hit the most sixes, you can select, and if they hit more sixes than the other team, the bet is a winner. It doesn’t matter if they lose the match, as long as they hit more maximums than the other team. This market is also available for fours, but they are two separate markets. 

Fall of first wicket

This is an intriguing one, and one that can usually determine the early stages of the game. You have to pick whether a team will get over a certain number of runs before they lose their first wicket. 

For example, you may back England in this market at over 27.5 runs.That means you believe England will get to at least 28 runs on the scoreboard, without having lost a wicket - or 28/0. 

Alternatively, if you don’t fancy the opening partnership, you can back under 27.5 runs, meaning you believe the first wicket will be taken before they reach 28 runs on the board.This can be done for any team, although the run total may change based on their ability.

First wicket dismissal

If you think you can predict how the first batter will lose their wicket, this market may interest you. There are two choices, ‘caught’ or ‘other’. The odds-on favourite for this market is usually always ‘caught’, given it is the most common dismissal method in the sport, but sometimes it is worth backing ‘other’.

Is there a bowler who continuously gets people out via LBW? Is there a particularly quick-thinking wicket-keeper who can stump out a batter? Do you just fancy the bowler to land a plum delivery and just skittle the stumps directly? 

In T20 games when batters have to chase runs a catch is likely, but in other forms of the game, we can often see multiple methods of dismissal - which all fall under ‘other’. This is a good market to get involved with if you have a decent amount of cricket knowledge. 

Who will win the toss?

A fun one to finish here, who will win the toss? It is as simple as it sounds as you pick which side will win the coin toss at the start of the game. The odds for both sides to win the toss are always the same, so if you fancy a little flutter before the action on the pitch begins, here is where to start! 

Obviously, there is no skill involved in a coin toss, it is all luck! 

Check out our Cricket Betting Tips here.