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No problems here at all, perfectly normal today.

Steve, Snow bunting did win! LOL!

Wolverhampton looks very pretty in the snow. Now snowing at Southwell.

Scrip

appears there is a problem with betfair for Pipex users - no idea how long im going to be without but if its not fixed by the time the cricket starts in the morning there phone operators are soon going to get fed up with me :-)

Steve,

Any ideas why Pipex? I was hoping to go with them at my new place but will steer clear if a constant problem with betfair.

Never been a prob before but the only complaints theyve had on the helpdesk this pm have all been from pipex users - no one has any idea why though - will let you know when i know more

It gets more interesting - cannot access the normal site www.betfair.com but can get in and use a mirror site whose address is www2.betfair.com

may be worth remembering and trying if the site ever crashes.

However cant use betangel this route as it trys to log in via the original website

Sorry you're having problems but please do keep me informed re Pipex users. TIA

just had a bizarre situation trading the financials on Betfair. I was backing the ftse 100 and was following finspreads ticker. Have checked with finspreads they say their ticker is real time but it was way out at the close. Ithought I was well over 5483 but actually finished below. Anyone else come across this?

Hi all

crockham - dont trade the financials afraid so cant help - only thing i would say is that most of the trading on the financials on betfair is done by bots now so you may be fighting a losing battle

just logged back on and all appears to be fine again. Going to have a look at the cricket in a bit, will post my thoughts later

crockham what ftse market ? if it was the end of day one betfair use the finishing price after the auction which takes about 10 mins the official close is 4.30 what some spreadbet firms use so the 4.30 price will be different to the end of day price sometimes this can be a swing as much as 20 points hope this helps.

as can be seen from the time of 4.30 till 4.40 looks like 10 point decline

First thoughts re tonights cricket

The toss is going to be critical to Englands chances of winning. On the evidence of the first 2 games their only chance of forcing a win is going to be to bat first and make a large score relatively quickly to put some pressure on the pakistan batsmen.

I see the draw has already been backed from 2.2 to 1.96 over the past day or so and i would certainly want the draw on my side during the test though may well lay it if it becomes ridiculously short in the first day and a half (if there is 1 wicket or less in the first session the draw is likely to be about 1.5-1.6). With winter drawing nearer in Pakistan there will be nowhere near the full 90 overs per day and with the start time 1/2 hr later than the first two tests then the number of overs could be nearer 70 per day than the 80 per day weve averaged in the first 2 tests

Team News:

England
Strauss has already flown home for the birth of his child so will be replaced by Collingwood with Vaughan moving up to open and Bell moving up to 3 with Collingwood slotting in at 4 (id rather see Kp at 4 and Colly at 5, especially in a test we need to win). England will also bring in Anderson to replace one of the spinners - which one will depend upon whether Giles is fit (his hip injury requires surgery and hell definitely not play in the 1 dayers). Back to 4 seamers is a positive move to me, sharing some of the workload for the quicks, though it would be a big ask of Anderson to make a large contribution on a flat track having played no competitive cricket, and the loss of Strauss is no biggy on the evidence that his mind has been back at home for the first 2 tests anyway.

Likely Team:
Vaughan, Trescothick, Bell, Pieterson, Collingwood, Flintoff, Jones, Giles/Udal, Hoggard, Harmison, Anderson


Pakistan
Shahid Afridi is banned after his blatant act of cheating in the last test and Younis Khan will also be absent after the death of his brother. They will be replaced by Hasan Raza and Asim Kamal. These two changes will make their batting more inexperienced and reduce their spinning and cheating options.

Likely team:
Butt, Malik, Inzy Ul Huq, Khan, Raza, Kamal, Akmal, Sami, Akhtar, Naved-ul-Hasan, Kaneria

crockam, a 'cash' index from a spreadbetter is not the cash index at all. It is cash in the sense that it settles at the end of the trading day rather than settling on a futures expiry date. It can't be the actual cash index since they would have no way of buying/selling the index in the market to lay off their position if necessary. In fact it is based on the closest future. You can use it to determine the direction the FTSE will follow, but not the absolute value.

kayak disagree with you ,now you can bet on a daily basis which is on a ftse daily bet using the ftse 100 index. fundy cricket looks a cert draw at this stage but 2 short at moment.

Many thanks for the comments
At one point i reckon it was 10 points adrift
Unfortunately an expensive way to learn

Cardiff now in the play off places .... oh joy , great few days :-)

It was very close Dil!

Sending off made the difference Harlosh ... nice one ref :-)

Glad I didn't trade it. Was tempted to back the draw at 1-1 but didn't.

Evening guys

After a very successful 36 hrs (for me), thought that Ipswich looked like they could always score even with 10 men, so rather rashly backed the draw at 3.50, only to watch cardiff take the lead a few minutes later. Faith was paid in full however and greened up at 1.22. Just in time lol :-)))

pth