Bank on England regularly reaching the boundary against Afghanistan

England are in the nice position of knowing that victory in their opening Group A match with Afghanistan will be enough to progress to the next round, but the best betting opportunity may be in how many fours they register.

It is 1/16 that England beat Afghanistan and although this outcome seems a given, there may be one or two worrying moments along the way.

India were never really allowed to tee off in their Group A game with Afghanistan and many punters would have expected them to score more than 159 from their 20 overs.

Afghanistan then made a decent fist of their run chase, without ever looking like surpassing this total.

One thing of note for India was that they managed 14 fours, alongside four sixes.

England are 8/11 to manage 14 or more fours and they have five or six players at the top of the order with no issues reaching the boundary, alongside Graeme Swann at the tail if he is called upon with the bat.

They hit 19 fours in their warm up with Australia and even managed 10 in a rare full 20-over game with South Africa despite mustering a total less than a run a ball.

The big danger for this bet is Afghanistan batting first, but they showed against India some ability in this department and should be fancied to at least pose a competitive total.

Another potentially profitable bet is a direct head-to-head between fellow wicket-keeping opening batsmen Craig Kieswetter and Mohammad Shahzad.

It is 5/6 that Shahzad scores the most of the duo if given a handicap start of 11.5 runs and he has an array of shots that enables him to score quickly.

All odds and markets correct as of publication