Team Odds for XXII Commonwealth Games

Today the odds for the winners of the team event at the XXII Commonwealth Games were posted. As it is a rare event to be able to bet on the winners of a team tournament, I will take a look at the odds.

In case you are unfamiliar with the tournament rules, the sixteen teams are drawn into four groups, the top two teams in each group will advance to the knockout stage. As in the Sudirman Cup, each tie will consists of five matches, one for each discipline.

I took a screenshot of the bet365 page:

So the odds are

1. India 2.0 So bookies see an almost 50% chance for India winning the tournament. Which is understandable after their win at the Thomas Cup. In their line-up for the Commonwealth Games are P.V. Sindhu, Laskshya Sen and Srikanth Kidambi, so they have very strong singles. I’m not so sure about their doubles though.
2. Malaysia 2.75 Malaysia will be the first competitor. I would expect them to be better in the doubles than India with the likes of Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan in the women’s doubles, Tan Kain Meng and Lai Pei Jing in the mixed doubles and Teng Fong Aaron Chia and Wooi Yik Soh in the men’s doubles. Lee Zii Jia is not in the squad, which diminishes their chances in the men’s singles, although he will be probably replaced by Ng Tze Yong, who also had a good run recently. In conclusion, as there are more doubles matches than singles matches, they might be the favorites against India.
3. Singapore 5.5 Lead by world champion Loh Kean Yew Singapore is ranked third. But apart from the men’s singles, they should be the underdog in each match, so I doubt that they can threaten India or Malaysia.
4. England 7.0 They will probably count on their home advantage. But I doubt that they will have chances against India and Malaysia, except maybe in the men’s doubles with Lane/Vendy and the mixed doubles with Ellis/Smith.
5. Canada 15.0 With the singles players Brian Yang and Michelle Li they might be good for two points, but I doubt that their doubles will score a point against any of the top four teams.
6. Scotland 15.0 They might be my best bet for a surprise in the quarter-finals. With Kirsty Gilmour in the women’s singles and Adam Hall playing with Alexander Dunn in the men’s doubles and Julie MacPherson in the mixed doubles they might have a chance of scoring three points, even against one of the top four teams.
7. Australia 81.0 Probably without any chance in the quarter-finals.

The other teams will probably have no chance of creating an upset. This is also reflected in their odds with values of 1501.0 or 4501.0. Note however that in Group D there are three underdogs with Jamaica, South Africa and Zambia. So one of them will reach at least the quarter-final. As Canada and Scotland are drawn in the same group one of them will enter the quarter-finals as a group winner and possibly play the underdog from group D, giving them a realistic chance of reaching the semi-finals. Also note that England and Singapore are drawn to play in the Group A. So one of them might meet one of the top teams already in the quarter-final. This would mean that the semi-final would not consist of the four teams with the lowest odds, giving better chances to one of the underdog.

So as a conclusion, if you ask me who is the best bet, I would answer Malaysia, because I would rank them above India, but bet365 thinks otherwise. If I had to pick one underdog, my money would be on Scotland.

We’ll see if it will be possible to not only bet on the individual matches, but also on the winners of the team matches.