Cricket isn’t Canada’s first betting choice, but it does offer a fun option at the betting window now that single-event betting has become the norm and private sportsbooks are licensed and legal. Betting on major cricket events will only grow with more betting options now available.
Whether you know the difference between a wicket or a bowl, the IPL or the ICC, cricket is a great market for new bettors. Here’s a complete look at cricket betting online in Canada, plus a few tips for navigating Cricket odds.
Best Cricket Betting Sites Canada
Now that private online sportsbooks are legal in Canada, you’ll see the best listed here along with exclusive promo codes for new account bonuses.
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Cricket betting odds
You can bet moneylines and various player and team props for each match in many leagues and competitions. Test matches feature three-way moneyline betting where you can also bet on a tie.
You can also bet futures on which team will win leagues and competitions. When said leagues and competitions are running, you’ll find current match cricket odds at your preferred online sportsbook. Check the toplist above for the latest bonus offers.
Test, ODI and T20 Cricket
Cricket matches are either Test, One-Day International (ODI) or T20 cricket. The difference is in the length of the matches.
- Test matches can last up to five days
- ODI matches are played over a single day
- T20 matches are played over just a few hours
Test matches include two innings of an indeterminate length for each team. ODI matches are one inning per side with a maximum number of 40, 50, or 60 overs. T20 cricket is one inning per side with 20 overs.
Bet on International Cricket Championships & World Cup
Soon enough, you should be able to bet on major international cricket competitions from around the world right here in Canada. This includes International Cricket Council (ICC) events. The ICC is cricket’s global governing body and the organizer behind various worldwide cricket competitions, including the following.
- The ICC World Test Championship: test cricket’s premier championship, involving the top nine teams in the world playing various series over a two-year period. The top two teams qualify for the World Test League Championship Final. The 2019-21 ICC World Test Championship began with the 2019 Ashes series (a famous England-Australia series) and will wrap up at the Rose Bowl, Southampton in June 2021, featuring New Zealand and India. A second ICC World Test Championship is scheduled to begin in July 2021.
- ICC Test Championship: international cricket ratings involving the 12 ICC National Test Cricket teams. Teams compete in a table for the ICC Test Championship Mace Trophy, which is awarded to the highest-ranked team. It changes hands every time a new team takes over the top spot in the rankings.
- ICC Cricket World Cup: international championship of One Day International Cricket held every four years. Scheduled for India in 2023 with England as defending champions (2019).
- ICC Cricket World Cup Super League: One Day International Cricket League with a two-year-long season, featuring 13 top international teams. The inaugural season started in May 2020 and is scheduled to run through March 2022.
- ICC Men’s T20 World Cup: International Championship of Twenty20 Cricket played every two years. Contested by 16 teams, including the World Top Ten and six others entering through a T20 World Cup Qualifier. The 2020 tournament in Australia was moved to November 2021 in India. The 2021 tournament in India was moved to October 2022 in Australia.
Bet on pro cricket leagues
You can bet on major cricket leagues from around the world right here in Canada. Let’s run down the top three leagues in the world:
- Indian Premier League: India’s top professional T20 cricket league, the IPL is considered the top cricket league in the world. The league runs annually from March or April through May and features eight teams. There’s a round-robin regular season, followed by playoffs among the top four teams, leading to the IPL final.
- Australia Big Bash League: Officially the KFC Big Bash League, this is professional T20 cricket in Australia. It features eight city-based franchises playing from December through February.
- T20 Blast League: Officially Vitality Blast, this is the pro cricket league from England that hosted the first test match, first ODI, first ever T20 match, and it was the first professional T20 league. It fields 18 first-class counties competing in geographical divisions from August through October. The top four teams in each division qualify for the playoff stage.
How to bet on cricket
Basic cricket betting is about picking match winners and locking in the currently posted moneyline odds at the time you place a bet. If a tie is possible, as in Test matches, there’s three-way moneyline betting on a home team win, away team win or a tie.
As in most moneyline betting, favourites show negative odds, indicating how much you need to bet to win $100 plus your bet back. Underdogs feature positive odds, indicating how much you stand to win, plus your bet back, for every $100 you bet.
The list of cricket match props is extensive and often includes:
- Top run-scorer for each team
- Highest opening partnership
- Team of the top batsman
- Team to score the most sixes
- Total match sixes
- Top wicket-taker for each team
- Will either team score a century?
- Will either team catch a wicket?
- Method of first dismissal
Cricket betting tips for beginners
Cricket betting isn’t rocket science. Get a handle on the game itself, do a little research on the matched teams, let that knowledge guide your picks and, with a little luck, you’ll find success. You can also employ these three cricket betting strategies.
- With all the pro leagues and international competitions, there’s a lot of cricket out there. Pick a specific league or competition and focus on it. Become an expert on that one kind of cricket, and you’ll find more success.
- Stick to One Day Internationals and T20 cricket as a beginner. The pace of these matches is more palatable, making them a good entry point.
- It’s night and day when it comes to cricket played at … night and day, particularly for batsmen. You can always bet on batters performing better during the day and bowlers getting the best of it at night.
Where to watch and bet on cricket in Canada
Cricket is mostly found on the Asian Television Network (ATN) in Canada, with most big events airing on its Commonwealth Broadcasting Network (CBN). ATN owns the rights to the ICC Cricket World Cup and runs a pay-per-view broadcast throughout Canada. Some cricket can also be found on Hotstar, DAZN and Willow TV.
Specifically, the Indian Premier League is on Hotstar, and the Big Bash League appears on CBN. TSN also airs some Global T20 Canada cricket action.
As far as betting is concerned, you can bet cricket parlays with most provincial lottery parlay products. And as mentioned before, you are now able to start cricket betting online on individual matches from various leagues since single-game betting is universal.
Why bet cricket over other sports?
Cricket’s lack of popularity in Canada can actually work to your advantage. There are very few Canadian cricket experts, and even fewer working as oddsmakers. Becoming one might help you find some opportunities others might not see.
That’s infinitely harder to do when you’re betting on the NHL, MLB, NBA or NFL. Plus, cricket is an international sport, which means the betting markets are live at all hours, ensuring that cricket betting doesn’t have to get in the way of your other Canadian sports betting pursuits.
Basic rules of cricket
Here’s a look at cricket’s gameplay basics:
- Cricket matches feature two teams of 11 players each.
- Basically, one player throws the ball and another tries to hit it, which means one team bats while the other fields. The object is to score more runs than the other team.
- There are Test matches that can last up to five days where both teams go through their batting lineup twice. Test matches feature 90 overs. Each over is six bowls or pitches.
- There are also One-Day matches that only last a day. Each team bats once with 40, 50 or 60 overs.
- There are also Twenty20 matches that last only a few hours. Each team bats once with only 20 overs.
- Teams score runs while batting. Two players bat at once. A striker takes the pitch from the bowler while a non-striker stands at the other end of the pitch.
Cricket scoring
Here’s a look at cricket’s scoring, bowling and fielding basics:
- A single run is scored when the batsman hits the ball and successfully runs to the opposite wicket. Double or triple singles are scored when the batsman continues running to the opposite wicket.
- A Boundary counts for six runs and is scored when the batsman hits the ball out of the pitch. It’s like a home run.
- Extra runs are awarded for various penalties by the fielding team, like a wide bowl or no-ball (illegal delivery or fielder action).
- Bowls are delivered to the striker until he is put out. He is then replaced by another batsmen until all players are out, ending the inning.
- Bowlers deliver the pitch or bowl the ball to the batsman. The rest of the fielding team positions itself around the pitch to stop runs and try to put batsmen out.
- Outs are recorded when the bowler hits the wicket, hit balls are caught in the air or a fielder hits the wicket with a batsman running in between the two wickets.
- Outs can also be recorded by leg before wicket, if the ball hits the striker and the umpire believes it would have hit the wicket. Or when the wicket is stumped, or put down by the wicket-keeper with a batsmen running.
- Six balls bowled constitutes an over. After that, a new bowler is designated and the striker and non-striker swap spots.
ICC cricket’s best players
The ICC ranks the top cricketers in the world, and you can bet on their performance through the props markets for various international and league competitions.
Here’s a look at the top three in batting, bowling and all-round cricket in Test, ODI and T20I cricket as of April 2021:
Test rankings
| Test Batting Rankings | Test Bowling Rankings | Test All-Rounder Rankings | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Kane Williamson, NZ | Pat Cummins, AUS | Jason Holder, WI |
| 2. | Steve Smith, AUS | Ravichandran Ashwin, IND | Ben Stokes, ENG |
| 3. | Marnus Labuschagne, AUS | Neil Wagner, NZ | Ben Stokes, ENG |
ODI rankings
| ODI Batting Rankings | ODI Bowling Rankings | ODI All-Rounder Rankings | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Babar Azam, PAK | Trent Boult, NZ | Shakib Al Hasan, BAN |
| 2. | Virat Kohli, IND | Mujeeb Ur Rahman, AFG | Ben Stokes, ENG |
| 3. | Rohit Sharma, IND | Matt Henry, NZ | Mohammad Nabi, AFG |
T20I rankings
| T20I Batting Rankings | T20I Bowling Rankings | T20I All-Rounder Rankings | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Dawid Malan, ENG | Tabraiz Shamsi, SA | Mohammad Nabi, AFG |
| 2. | Babar Azam, PAK | Rashid Khan, AFG | Shakib Al Hasan, BAN |
| 3. | Aaron Finch, AUS | Ashton Agar, AUS | Glenn Maxwell, AUS |
Top Canadian cricket players
Canada hasn’t had much success in international cricket competitions. However, these three legendary players have always represented the country well.
- Ashish Bagai is the former captain of the Canadian cricket team and wicketkeeper specialist, who moved to Canada from India at age 11. He holds numerous Canadian cricket records, including the most One Day Internationals played (52).
- Rizwan Cheema is the former captain of the Canadian cricket team and is known as a big-hitting batsman. He was born and raised in Pakistan but moved to Canada in the early 2000s and made his international debut for Canada at the age of 30.
- John Davison is the former ODI Canadian captain. He’s known as a hard-hitting batsman and off break bowler. Born in British Columbia but raised in Australia, he helped the Canadian national team qualify for the 2003 Cricket World Cup.
The 3 greatest Canadian cricket moments
- 1844: Canada took on the United States in New York City in the first ever international cricket match. The annual Canada-US match is now the Auty Cup.
- 1979: Canada finished runner-up for the 1979 ICC Trophy, qualifying for the Cricket World Cup for the first time.
- 2011: Canada won the ICC Americas Championship one-day cricket tournament for the fourth time, becoming the most successful team in the history of the event.