Trent Bridge 6th - 10th August 2015
After a fast and furious test at Edgbaston, with England recording an impressive victory over a limp Australian side within three days, the fourth Ashes test rolls into Nottingham with the series very nicely poised at 2-1 to the hosts with two to play. A victory for England here would wrap up the series, whilst a defeat would make the final test at The Oval a winner-takes-all match, and so both sides will be approaching this game looking to win.
England will be missing James Anderson through injury, with Liam Plunkett and Mark Footitt being brought into the otherwise unchanged squad as potential replacements. Obviously, Anderson will be a huge miss for England, especially given his impressive record at Trent Bridge, having picked up 53 wickets in eight tests at an average of 19.24. His absence will mean that Stuart Broad, who has picked up 25 wickets at 23.24 in his previous six tests at Trent Bridge, will be England's senior bowler. Broad has bowled excellently so far this series, although this is not reflected in his 12 wickets at 27.41. Given England's otherwise inexperienced bowing attack, and Broad's tendency to produce game-changing bowling spells when it counts, backing Broad for Top England Bowler at 3.75 looks like good value.
Australia seems to have selection headaches in all departments, with their batting line up, which looked imperious two weeks ago at Lords, flopping to 136 all out in the first innings at Edgbaston, and the seam attacking looking toothless, with the exception of one excellent over from Mitchell Johnson. Journalistic consensus seems to be that Adam Voges will be dropped for Shaun Marsh, who will bat at 4 with Michael Clarke moving to 5. Clarke has had an extremely poor series so far, scoring just 94 in 6 innings, averaging 18.8, and his previous two tests at Trent Bridge have been disappointing, having scored 115 at 28.75. There is also talk of Peter Siddle being brought into the side at the expense of Josh Hazlewood to give the Australian bowling attack more of a wicket-taking threat. Siddle has played one test previously at Trent Bridge, picking up 8 wickets at 16.87, and also had a fairly impressive summer with Notts in 2014, and so will be familiar with the conditions. Siddle can be backed for Top Australian Bowler at 5.5, and given the lack of a threat from the remaining Australian seamers last week, this looks to offer some good value.
Turning to the outright market, Australia are currently favourites, at 2.14 on the Betfair Exchange, with England 3.6 and the draw at 3.8. My play here is to lay the draw at 3.85, as neither side will be content with a draw, the weather looks set for the five days and the pitch looks to be very similar to Edgbaston's, with a healthy covering of grass. I am also tempted to take England, as I think the 3.6 is very generous, giving them an implied probability of 27.8% of claiming victory, and there are rumours of a growing discontent within the Australia squad around the selection of Peter Nevill ahead of Brad Haddin at Birmingham. However, given England's inconsistent record, WLWLWLW over their last seven tests, the swings so far in the series, and Australia's toughness, I prefer opposing the draw.
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