West Indies narrow favourites for Barbados decider

For arguably the first time this winter, West Indies have the upper hand going in to the final match of England's tour. Having taken the lead over the weekend with back-to-back wins in St Lucia, the teams head to Bridgetown for the decider on Wednesday. West Indies are 4/5, with England at slightly longer odds of 10/11.

The England bowling has been a relative disappointment following the ecstasy of the Test series. Andy Flintoff has four wickets to his name, while the veteran Darren Gough has only three at the relatively high cost of 5.46 per over. There is much speculation that the Barbados game could be Gough's last hurrah, and at 14/1 to be Man of the Match and 11/4 to be the Top England bowler, he might be worth a punt. Given the relative impotence of the attack, any England bowler could end up with most wickets, so punters could do worse than back a relative outsider - how about 8/1 for Rikki Clarke?

The England trio of Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan and Flintoff have the shortest odds in the Top England Batsman market. The openers are both 10/3, while Flintoff is 9/2 alongside Andrew Strauss. Paul Collingwood has made an uncharacteristically small contribution to the batting effort to date, and could be a good bet at 6/1.

West Indies have at last rediscovered some batting élan, and the top West Indies batsman is difficult to call. Shivnarine Chanderpaul has the most runs of any batsman in the series so far - 190 - and is 7/2 behind his captain Brian Lara to be Top West Indies batsman. Dwayne Smith has impressed with his aggression, and is a tempting 8/1. For longer odds on these players, why not try the Man of the Match market, which has Lara favourite at 11/2, Chanderpaul at an enticing 10/1, and Dwayne Smith at 18/1. Chris Read's Man of the Match award in the first game seems a lifetime ago, although he is attractively priced at 33/1 to repeat the feat in Barbados.