Betting tips / Andrew Hughes / 21 May 2012 / Leave a comment Bet Now View Market

In his wrap up of day four, Andrew Hughes still feels that, despite the West Indies holding out better than expected, England will wrap up the game sometime during the final day.

Betfair Match Odds: England@1.22; West Indies@5.8; Draw@70.0

This may be the least flamboyant West Indies team ever to catch a flight out of the Caribbean, but in their attempt to reverse a 15=year decline, they are following the Duncan Fletcher and Nasser Hussain prescription: first make yourself hard to beat. At 36-3 yesterday afternoon, all hope of winning the game had gone and in similar circumstances, other West Indian teams of recent vintage would have gone down to an innings defeat in a blaze of wild strokeplay.

Instead, Shivnarine Chanderpaul dropped anchor and with Marlon Samuels and the tail, challenged the fielding side to prise them out. With the old ball offering nothing and the pitch not deteriorating, England's bowlers proved unable to do so. There were no wickets in the morning session and just two with the new ball in the afternoon. Samuels, Denesh Ramdin and captain Darren Sammy all dug in and whilst it wasn't pretty to watch it will have done wonders for the tourist's self-belief.

And to cap it all off, having managed to set a target that at least gave them a chance, they prised out two quick wickets before the close to give England something to think about. Kemar Roach and Fidel Edwards steamed in like the West Indies quicks of old and rattled the England openers. Roach in particular looked seriously quick and with his opening bowling partner a little injury prone, he has to be a good bet @1.75 to finish as the top series wicket taker for the West Indies.

The tourists can't be written off, but odds @5.7 about the West Indies winning this game are too short. Of the two wickets to fall, one was the nightwatchman so England have only really lost one front-line batsman and they bat deeper than most international teams. Once the shine goes off the new ball, batting should be plain sailing and England can wrap this game up around tea time.

Still, this match has shown that the West Indies are stubborn opponents.

A whitewash is not on the cards and 'England 1-0' in the Test Series Correct Score market @10.0 could be worth a look.