Punters Punting on Bunting
- By Jaymes Monte on January 5, 2011 11:54 GMT
Stephen Bunting takes on Scott Waites this evening for a place in the quarter-finals of the BDO World Championships at Lakeside.
Waites is looking to add the BDO world title to his mantelpiece after brilliantly winning the Grand Slam of Darts trophy back in November of last year. He came through his first round match against Ted Hankey in impressive fashion and will need to be on top of his game once again when he takes on Bunting tonight.
Bunting recorded the highest three-dart average of the first round when he beat Brian Woods 3-0 to progress to the second round of the World Championships for the first time since 2004. If he can reproduce that form then he can push Waites all the way here.
The bookmakers don’t seem to have much faith in Bunting’s chances though and he is as big as 3/1 to go through to the last 8. Waites, often a model of consistency, is as short as 1/4 as he goes in search of that world title.
The other two games of the evening are a lot more closely matched in the eyes of the bookies. Alan Norris is the 4/5 favourite in his match against Garry Thompson after both players came through their opening round matches by 3-1 scorelines.
However, Thompson’s three-dart average was a poor 78.06 in that victory, some eight points lower than Norris’s, and he will need to improve on that considerably if he is to prolong his run in this year’s tournament.
The final match of the evening pits Robbie Green against Dean Winstanley. Winstanley is making his Lakeside debut this week and notched up a notable 3-2 win over Martin Atkins in the first round. The bookmakers have priced this one up at 10/11 the pair.
The lack of strength and depth in the BDO, compared to the PDC, is often what charms darts fans. The belief that anyone can beat anyone on their day is what makes it so exciting.
