Updated: 2024This page will give you a complete overview of the cricket betting options, best UK bookmakers that offer betting on cricket, strategy, tips and more.
Best sites to bet on cricket in the UK
Overview of Cricket Betting
Cricket is the second most popular global sport after football. Its biggest following base is in Australia, New Zealand, India and Pakistan. It is popular in the UK as well and in terms of betting, cricket is becoming an increased business for punters. The first international game between Canada and the United States was disputed in 1844 and almost a £100,000 bets were wagered on it, which was a huge amount at the time.
It’s not a surprise that cricket is the national sport in the UK. It was actually invented in south-east England in the late 16th century. Naturally, for as long as players played cricket, there have been people looking to make money by betting on the outcome. Betting is responsible for the growth and the development of the sport of cricket. In the early days of cricket, matches were played just to provide opportunities for wealthy gamblers. Some of these wealthy gamblers even established their own cricket teams to have more betting chances.
How is Cricket Played?
It goes without saying that one should understand as much as possible about cricket before betting on it. This is the base of sports betting in general. The more knowledge the better, but at the very least one should understand the basics of the sport.
Cricket is a bat and ball sport, much like baseball.
The playing field is oval-shaped and in the middle, it has a 22 ft. rectangular pitch. The pitch has wickets at each end. Each wicket has three rods made of wood (stumps) with two small wooden pieces (bails) balanced on top.
A cricket team is made up of 11 players with one substitution in case of an injury. The fielding team sends all its players on the field while the batting team sends out two batsmen. Batsmen always work in pairs and a batsman cannot bat alone. The batsman’s role is to defend the wickets and score runs by hitting the pitched ball with the bat.
A run is scored when after hitting the ball, the batsman runs to the other end of the pitch while his paired non-hitting batsman runs to his end. The objective of cricket is to have more runs scored than the opponent.
On top of the basic rules of cricket, a bettor should understand the main three formats of the sport.
- Test cricket – this is the oldest form of cricket, having been played since 1877 and is settled in a 5-day format consisting of two batting innings for each team. It is seen as the pinnacle of cricket because of the length of the matches which challenges teams over longer periods of time.
- One Day International – started in 1981, ODIs are a quicker form of cricket. One Day matches are played with each team batting one inning and facing a fixed number of overs, normally 50 overs.
- Twenty20 International – also known as T20I, this is the shortest and fastest cricket format. It started in 2005 and it increased the audience level and led to the development of new sets of skills. In a T20I match, each cricket team faces 20 overs and the match is usually over in 3 hours’ time.
