Last week I traded my first full test match: India v West Indies. I usually enjoy watching test matches but at times I struggled to sit through this one. India dominated from start to finish and the market was relatively stagnant. After 4 days, I lost a bit of money but overall I learnt quite a bit.

How I traded this test?

At the start of every day, I did my research and thought about the various ways the match could unfold. For the first 2 days I traded relatively well but things went downhill from there. Mid-way through the first session on Day 3, I backed the draw. The draw price was crashing and I was hoping to cash out with a nice profit during the lunch break, except… Bravo decided to get out at the stroke of lunch. Just after lunch, Shami picked up two wickets in one over and I was a dead duck.

I am disappointed in myself for the way I traded the remainder of the test match. I backed the draw at high prices and kept waiting for a fightback in anticipation of green-ing out. This was quite dangerous given that all five of the Indian bowlers were bowling very well.

With the benefit of hindsight, I probably lost money due to the following reasons:

• A bit of bad luck with the wicket of Bravo on Day 3. However, if presented the same situation I will trade the same way.

• A lot of bad trading on Days 3 and 4. Given that the Indian bowlers bowled well, I should have been more wary of backing the draw. If I had back the draw, I should have dipped in and out of the markets looking for small profits rather than large ones.

• Over-estimating the West Indies. I know this is a poor West Indies team but I expected a bit of fightback at some stage, and this didnt eventuate.

Second test

I am really looking forward to the 2nd test starting today and I hope to implement some of the lessons learnt.

The pitch is green and the last 15 matches at Jamaica have not seen a draw. So I am going to back the bowling team tomorrow and lay the draw when possible. I think a green pitch might favour the West Indies slightly in that it will bring their bowlers more into play (Brathwaite and Holder looked especially toothless in the first test). And I hope we see a bit of Alzarri Joseph!

Whilst I dont intend to turn this into a profit/loss blog, I might attach screenshots from time to time: