England are early favourites for 2019 World Cup

England are looking worthy favourites for the World Cup after a comprehensive 4-1 series win against Australia in the ODI’s. The result was all the more impressive given the continued absence of star turn Ben Stokes.

On the back of their success down under, England have now been installed as favourites for the Cricket World Cup 2019.  Always a very popular betting event anyway, especially with the tournament being on home soil, it will also ensure that there will be lots of free bets UK bookies promote as we edge towards the start date of the 30th of May 2019.

England coach Trevor Bayliss has embraced his team’s current status as tournament betting favourites, stating, “The way we have been playing one-day cricket over the last few years and the way we continue to play, and obviously with the World Cup at home, we should be one of the favourites.”  He went on to add, “Only time will tell how we handle that but, if we go in to all of the series between now and that World Cup thinking we are favourites, then that will be good practice for us and we will see how the players react”.

With England having lost just three ODIs out of 22 in the past year and winning nine out of the 12 series since Bayliss took over as coach in July 2015, his confidence is based on solid foundations .

There is no questioning the quality in the England cricket ranks, with a top three of Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow and Alex Hales all capable if weighing in with big scores and then a middle order that’s the envy of their peers, with captain Eoin Morgan, Joe Root, Jos Buttler and Stokes all joining the aforementioned trio in having scored 900-plus runs at 90-plus strike rates since 01 April 2015.  Then there’s Moeen Ali (624 runs at SR 113.7) and Chris Woakes (526 runs at SR 104.2) also being more than useful with the cricket bat.

In terms of the bowling, England have clearly benefited from Mark Wood and Liam Plunkett not featuring for the Test team, whilst Adil Rashid, Woakes, David Willey, Moeen Ali, Jake Ball and now Tom Curran offer plenty of depth and variety in that department.

With a World Cup in which the ICC are sure to prepare cricket pitches that suit the hosts, Bayliss’ confidence might just prove to be justified come the date of the next World Cup final on 14th July 2019.