Established behavioural economics finding: people are willing to pay more for insurance against death caused by an airplane accident than for insurance against death by any cause. Clearly death caused by an airplane accident is a subset of death by any cause. But when thought of a dramatic cause of death like an airplane accident is planted in the mind, the imagination takes over and makes that cause feel more real, tangible and likely than it actually is.
I have a hunch the same cognitive bias is happening on Betfair in assessing the odds of an Australian victory at Perth. Betfair thinks the likelihood that Australia will win is ~30%.
The point is: it is easy to imagine the Australian batsmen playing out of their skins to steal a memorable win. I remember Ponting's innings in the 2003 World Cup final, Gilcrist's innings in the 2007 World Cup final, Symond's innings in the first innings at Sydney...it's easy to imagine something like that happening again. The sheer ease of imagining another breathtaking, match winning performance from Australia might make the market over-estimate the odds of an Australian win.
What is critical is that India channel their imaginations into just putting the ball in the right areas and holding their catches. Think about nothing else. That's the action which will make the odds on India shorten.
BTW...writing this post hasn't quite given me the courage to go and bet on India. Not yet, anyway.
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