Difficult to look beyond 10-11 Taylor

SPORTS BETTING:

FIRST this week, an apology. I got my Ashes predictions for England victory completely wrong!

There’s some good news, though. Losses on Ashes bets have been nullified completely by our successful punt on 7-1 UK Snooker Championship winner Neil Robertson. It’s perhaps ironic that he too is an Aussie!

With the Australians doing so well at present – they also won the RL World Cup – Simon Whitlock might seem a fitting bet to land the PDC World Darts Championship, which gets underway at Alexandra Palace on Friday.

Whitlock might look like a cross between Brett Lee and Davy Crockett, but he’s a sureshot with the arrers and 33-1 to lift the biggest prize in darts is fair, given he was runner-up in 2010 and is one of the top handful of players.

That said, it’s hard to look beyond the reigning, 16-times champion Phil Taylor. Michael van Gerwen, Adrian Lewis, Raymond van Barneveld and James Wade are all in the opposite half, so unless Whitlock or perhaps Terry Jenkins hit a purple patch, then The Power is going to cruise to another final.

With that in mind, 10-11 on Taylor is a reasonable price, even though he lost the recent Players’ Championship to van Gerwen.

The latter may well face Lewis in the semi-final, so one of them has to go, so backing either as an outright winner is a dodgy prospect. The lack of an obvious edge makes this a no-bet tournament for me.



THE third Test at Perth gets underway on Friday and shellshocked England will do well to avoid defeat at a ground certain to suit Aussie’s rejuvenated fast bowler, Mitchell Johnson.

I can’t put my finger on what has gone wrong in the England camp, but they owe the many followers who made the trip to Australia a much better show in this next game.

Australia are 8-11 to prevail, with England 11-4 and the draw 4-1.