Cricket World Cup: Batsmen should go big on friendly pitches

'Go big or go home' is the message for batsmen at the World Cup and backing any individual to score 175 or more looks the way for punters to profit from bowlers' pain.

The 2015 tournament featured double-centuries from Martin Guptill and Chris Gayle, as well as an extraordinary 162 not out off 66 balls by AB de Villiers, and more of the same is expected at batsman-friendly venues such as Trent Bridge, The Oval, the Rose Bowl and the County Grounds in Bristol and Taunton.

The rate of scoring in modern ODIs means that ordinary hundreds are no longer a guarantee of success – indeed Pakistan have lost the last eight games in which one of their batsmen has reached three figures.

The emphasis is on piling up massive individual scores and there are plenty of candidates who could seal the over 174.5 bet.

Guptill and Gayle return for another World Cup campaign while India's Rohit Sharma has three ODI double-tons on his CV and Pakistan's Fakhar Zaman scored 210 not out against Zimbabwe last year.

Faf du Plessis, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Ross Taylor, Jason Roy, David Warner, Quinton de Kock, Evin Lewis and Shai Hope all have top scores of 170 or more and Jos Buttler's 150 off 77 balls against the West Indies in February showed what is possible these days.

Few players in the tournament strike the ball as sweetly as India's Hardik Pandya, who is worth backing to score the fastest fifty in terms of balls faced.

Pandya hit an astonishing 91 off 34 balls for Mumbai against Kolkata in the IPL and his last ODI innings was 45 off 22 against a classy New Zealand bowling unit in Wellington.

India's top order should give him regular platforms to explode late in the innings whereas market leader Andre Russell, who hasn't played an ODI in nearly a year, could struggle to replicate his wonderful IPL performances.

Two top team runscorer bets stand out as value. Bangladesh opener Soumya Sarkar comes into the tournament in fine form after a double-century in a domestic List A game and scores of 73, 54 and 66 against the West Indies in Ireland.

He has a solid average of 37, scoring his runs at almost exactly a run a ball, and could overshadow illustrious teammates Tamim Iqbal, Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim.

Babar Azam has made international cricket look easy since his debut for Pakistan in November 2015. Averaging over 50 in ODI and Twenty20 internationals, he made 115 and 80 in the last two matches of the series against England and can play the Joe Root-style anchor role for his side.

He may well make a strong start to the tournament as he takes on the West Indies in his opening game. His six ODIs against the Windies have yielded four centuries: 120, 123 and 117 in the UAE in 2016 and an unbeaten 125 in Guyana a year later.

Recommendations
Highest individual score over 174.5
5pts 5-6 Hills
S Sarkar top Bangladesh runscorer
1pt 5-1 Coral, Ladbrokes
B Azam top Pakistan runscorer
3pts 9-4 Coral, Ladbrokes
H Pandya to score fastest fifty
1pt 10-1 Betway

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