Cricket betting odds at LeoVegas
Cricket is a fascinating gambling market due to the broad appeal of the sport. At LeoVegas, you'll find cricket betting odds for all the major competitions and more niched events you might be interested in.
Cricket in a nutshell
There are a few variations of cricket. With versions like One Day and T20 purposely designed to bring a more exciting vibe to the more traditional, slow-paced test cricket structure, there’s a lot that falls under the umbrella of cricket betting, and we’ll be exploring this in detail.
Cricket is a game played by two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field; the wicket is where most of the action takes place. There are two batsmen or batswomen, each facing an over at a time. An over consists of six deliveries from the opposition bowler, usually rotating between four or five different bowlers for the duration of the match.
The batter who is facing the bowler, hitting the ball across the field and successfully over the boundary, past the fielders, will score four runs. If the ball is hit high and beyond the boundary without it touching the ground, this results in six runs. If a batter hits the ball into an area of the field where a fielder can reach it, the two batters will run to each wicket and touch their bats within the crease, with each movement resulting in one run. If they don’t make it in time by the time the fielder returns the ball to the wicket, they can be “run out.”
One-day cricket, or T20, is a version of cricket in which the batter needs to score as many runs as possible within 50 or 20 (T20) overs. Test cricket occurs over five days and hundreds of overs, with the goal of each team being to score as many runs as possible and keep the opposition to as low of a number as they can.
If the bowler hits the stumps, the batter will be “out”; once 10 batters are out, the total run tally is the final score for the team. Other ways batters can end up dismissed from the field include hitting the ball directly to an opposition player and getting caught out, which often happens when the wicketkeeper catches the ball directly behind because of a small touch from the batter, or an LBW (leg before wicket), which is when the batter’s leg interferes with the likelihood of the ball hitting the stumps.
All of these rules also apply in ODI cricket, but the tempo is much faster, with the batters taking more risk, as they have a limited amount of time to score as many runs as they can. Test cricket is slower as it stretches out over hundreds of overs, but cricket betting odds go right across the range of markets available, including ODI, T20, and test cricket.
Bet on cricket online
Given that cricket games stretch over multiple days, with the average game length being significantly longer than most other professional sports, there’s ample opportunity for many in-play markets. Placing a bet on cricket online also allows one to explore outright markets, such as the winners of the overall test, the tournament, or even the outcome of just one particular ball being bowled.
Cricket betting markets
We could write pages and pages of all the available markets available to you in cricket betting. However, we’ve narrowed it down to the main markets with the most activity here at LeoVegas. Cricket odds, like any sport, are especially volatile once the game is underway, but there’s value to explore if you have the knowledge, skill, patience, and ability to know what to look for. A nice chunk of luck wouldn’t go amiss either!
Match winner
This market is self-explanatory – a match winner in test cricket will be decided throughout the entire test, usually five days. As the name suggests, the winner of a one-day cricket game is decided in one day.
Over/under
As one of the most popular cricket betting markets, the over/under market refers to betting on a specific team to score more or less than a certain number of runs. A total of 500 runs, for example, is fairly rare, but if a top team plays a team much lower down the world rankings, you’ll find the odds will reflect that. So, if India is playing Ireland, cricket odds will also reflect the quality of the two teams, and the odds will be much lower in this match than, say, if England were playing Australia.
If a team has an array of strong bowlers, betting on under 250 runs might be long odds, but if you have done your homework, you might find value in the bet. This is just one scenario. There are dozens of over/under bets and strategies that people implement.
Top batsman
The top two batters in any lineup are generally the strongest, and generally, the lower down the pecking order you go, the less skilled the batters are. A top batsman cricket bet will usually pit the two best batsmen from each team against each other. It is an interesting cricket betting market because it incorporates the form and skill of several players on the pitch.
Occasionally, the best batter can be even further down the batting order, and this is where you’d find the best odds if you fancy an inspired session at the crease by an all-rounder or wicketkeeper. Still, more often than not, it is the top two names in the batting order to keep an eye on.
Top bowler
There are a few components to weigh up if you’re looking at the top bowlers in cricket betting odds. More often than not, the top bowler will open the bowling order and have the most overs bowled by the end of the game. However, the top bowler odds refer to the bowler who takes the most wickets. So, it might not even be a bowler who actually bowls that many overs but one who hits a purple patch and takes out a few batters in quick succession.
Toss winner
To decide who bats first, there’s a coin toss. This has been a tradition in cricket since the game's inception over 150 years ago. Usually, the team that wins will factor in several different variables, such as the weather, the dryness or wetness of the surface, or whether they can take advantage of being the home or away team and set an early lead. It’s often a team decision made by the captain during the coin toss and can have a huge impact on how the game pans out.
In-play betting and pre-match betting
Pre-match cricket odds include all the markets we’ve just covered in our previous section, and there are a lot of in-play odds you can find that cover the top bowler, batter, and matchwinner, but they fluctuate as the game progresses. One of the beauties of cricket betting is that you can benefit from the fact that the games occur over a much longer period, giving you a lot more opportunity to find value in the in-play market.
Cricket betting odds
As we have already touched on, the markets can vary wildly. For instance, if you’re looking to place a bet on top batsmen, finding out how well they do against certain types of bowlers on surfaces or how they play in other atmospheres are all critical factors that could influence the overall outcome of the bet. The cricket betting odds you find will usually factor this in, but finding little-known facts and statistics that could aid your bet are crucial components to finding an opportunity in the market.
Cricket betting leagues
Cricket leagues are becoming much bigger. Due to the rise of the Indian economy and the fact that it is the biggest sports market in the world, there’s now a lot more money pouring into the league, and it’s attracting the finest players from all over the world. The Indian Premier League and the Australian Big Bash League are the top forms of T20 cricket, considered the sport's most exciting and fast-paced version. However, the Cricket World Cup is also a colossal event on the calendar.
Bet on IPL
Although the IPL only emerged in 2007, which makes it a minnow compared to some of the more established sports leagues and betting markets, it is a multibillion-dollar market and attracts tens of millions of viewers; an IPL game last year broke the Guinness World Record for the highest attendance, so the market for the league is huge.
T20 cricket has taken the original ODI format of 50 overs and condensed it into 120 deliveries (20 overs) – hence the name.
It has taken off and it has managed to bridge a gap successfully between casual cricket fans – who maybe didn’t have the patience or time to watch a test match, compared with the excitement of ODI – and created an even shorter, more explosive, and exciting version of the game. The Chennai Super Kings lifted the league trophy last year and they are the most successful team alongside the Mumbai Indians, with both teams winning the IPL five times each.
The IPL occurs between March and May every year in a series of quick-fire games. Ten IPL teams are divided into two groups. Each team plays home and away against all five teams in the opposing group, and additionally, against all four of the teams in its own group, before a knockout tournament that determines the champions. At LeoVegas you'll find competitive IPL betting odds for your matches.
Bet on BBL
The Big Bash League in Australia follows a similar format. With 20 overs between teams, the BBL takes place across the Australian summer months of November, December, and January. The BBL’s first season took place in 2011, riding the crest of the wave the IPL started, and the league continues to grow in stature and reputation, with the five-time winners the Perth Scorchers being the most recent recipient of the Big Bash trophy.
As of 2024, the BBL will be reduced to a 44-game season instead of 59. From a cricket betting perspective, this doesn’t change the markets involved, where you can bet on teams to win games, leagues, or the overall championship, but it does result in a shorter calendar in the shortest version of the game.
Bet on T20 Blast
The T20 Blast is the oldest T20 league and the English and Welsh equivalent to the IPL and the BBL. The format differs slightly in that the league is split into north and south regions, each containing nine teams that play each other twice. The knockout stage consists of a straight, head-to-head game between the teams that finish in the top four of each league.
Again, like the BBL or IPL, the cricket betting odds cover top bowlers, batters, and over/under and outright markets, but the in-play markets are even more volatile, given that the game lengths are much shorter.
Bet on the World Cup
The Cricket World Cup occurs once every four years, with the current champions, England, lifting the trophy back in 2019, the occasion being the first time they got their hands on the trophy. Australia is the most successful, with five World Cups to their name. As it is the oldest and most prestigious tournament, there have been a lot of changes since the original World Cup nearly 50 years ago, in 1975.
The World Cup broadly follows the same format as the T20 Blast but with two groups of seven teams instead of nine. The World Cup sees the most activity as it is considered the landmark event in the cricket calendar – the main difference is that it is an ODI format of 50 overs, but again, there are ample markets for you to browse.
Cricket betting odds at LeoVegas
In today’s society, so many of us do everything through our mobile phones. If you’re looking for cricket odds, you can browse LeoVegas from the browser or the app. Go to the online sports betting section and search for the market, regardless of whether you use your laptop, PC, or mobile device. The odds are available at your fingertips.