Hosts West Indies (WI) take on the visiting side England (ENG) in the first ODI of the three-match series, at the renowned Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, North Sound, in Antigua, on Thursday, October 31.Approximately 12 months ago at this time, England were in India for the 2023 ODI World Cup which was easily their most embarrassing tournament in the format since the 2015 World Cup.
If that tournament gave a hint that transition was due in their white-ball cricket, the 2024 T20 World Cup format gave a stronger argument for that process to be initiated. A first step in that direction was seen at home this summer during the white-ball series against Australia. This trip to West Indies is another opportunity for England as they look to build towards the 2025 Champions Trophy.
WI vs ENG : Previous Performances
The Caribbean side is coming into this series on the back of a challenging white-ball tour of Sri Lanka, where they played three ODIs and as many T20Is against the Lankan Lions. Rovman Powell-led West Indies lost the T20I series 1-2 before Shai Hope’s contingent was defeated by a similar margin in the ODI rubber.
The West Indies batters’ batting techniques on spin-friendly tracks were put to the test. Some of the weaknesses that hampered their progress were the inability to rotate strikes against the spinners and converting starts into substantial scores.
After losing the first two games comprehensively, Evin Lewis’ spectacular century on his ODI comeback gave the Caribbean side a consolation win in the final encounter. However, the game was shortened due to rain as the West Indies needed 195 to win in 23 overs. They managed to do so with eight wickets and an over to spare.
The reduction of overs played into the hands of the West Indies as they are more comfortable in the shorter formats of the game instead of building the innings and setting things up for the backend, which is generally the trend in 50-over cricket.
It was a series to remember for Sherfane Rutherford, who scored half-centuries in each of the three matches. He aggregated 204 runs at a strike rate of 107.37. Meanwhile, Gudakesh Motie was particularly impressive with the ball as he bagged four wickets from three matches at an average of 21.50 and an economy rate of 3.91.
Meanwhile, England’s last assignment was a three-match Test series in Pakistan, which they lost 1-2. However, not many players from that squad will be featuring against the Windies. The Three Lions’ most recent ODI series was against Australia at home. It turned out to be a riveting five-match affair, which saw the two-arch rivals battling it out to gain bragging rights.
The Aussies won the first two games before England bounced back to square things up at 2-2. The tourists won the final ODI to break English hearts. However, the fact that a relatively inexperienced England squad took the ODI World Cup champions to the limit deserves a lot of praise.
Harry Brook led England in the series against Australia. Brook and Ben Duckett were the leading run-getters in the series against Australia but both of them will not be featuring in this series. Liam Livingstone will take up leadership duties as Jos Buttler continues to recover from his calf injury.
The onus will be on the likes of Will Jacks and Phil Salt to make an impact at the top of the order for England. The bowling department will be led by Jofra Archer and Adil Rashid, who were disappointed against the Aussies. Reece Topley will have a key role to play with the new ball for the Brits.
WI vs ENG : Head to Head
Matches | 105 |
Won by West Indies | 46 |
Won by England | 53 |
No Result | 06 |
First-ever Fixture | September 5, 1973 |
Most-recent Fixture | December 9, 2023 |
WI vs ENG : Pitch Report
The average score at this venue in ODI cricket is 239. Meanwhile, the highest is 326/6 and it was scored by the West Indies against England in the most recent ODI game played in this stadium last year. The Windies chased down a 326-run target with seven balls to spare. The lowest score was made by India against the West Indies when they were bowled out for 146 in 2011. Pacers generally get some assistance from this pitch. The captain who wins the toss would want to bat first and put runs on the board.
A fairly central strip means boundary dimensions are more or less uniform. With four visits to the Caribbean in the space of three years, England’s senior players are well used to the cross-winds that can aid or end any given batter’s attempts to clear the ropes. Conflicting reports of rain may also throw a little chaos into the mix.
Spinners will likely play a crucial role at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium owing to the slow nature of the surface. The average first innings total at the venue in 21 T20Is has emerged in the range of mid-130s. Considering the overall T20I track record here, the captain winning the toss will likely opt to bat first.
According to AccuWeather, there are high chances of rainfall around North Sound during match time. The website indicates that the probability of precipitation is expected to be as high as 55 percent. The match can either be called off or will have its number of overs drastically reduced for a result.
The highest-ever total at the venue batting first is 325 which was coincidentally made by England in the last series between the two teams in December 2023. It was also successfully chased down by West Indies. That game apart, the venue hasn’t been quick-scoring and hasn’t witnessed big totals. Scores in the 275-300 range have been competitive and the trend should continue.
WI vs ENG : Big Picture : Do not adjust your time zones is the advice
Are you keeping up at the back? England’s Test team has just arrived back home from Pakistan, licking their wounds after a 2-1 series defeat, but already making plans for their next three-Test tour of New Zealand in barely three weeks’ time. And now, to fill the idle minutes between those two significant endeavors, a separate England squad has been dispatched to the Caribbean for its fourth visit in the space of three years, to continue the reboot of their white-ball fortunes after two underwhelming World Cup defenses.
This is the sweet spot of England’s post-Covid fixture congestion – a series so shoehorned that it’s hard to know what to read into the players selected, or indeed the results expected.
As Jason Holder told ESPNCricinfo, the ECB’s honoring of its debts to West Indies after his team’s efforts in the lockdown summer of 2020 is a significant factor in the timing of this tour, and so there’s a transactional aspect to the coming eight games that cannot be ignored. The financial stimulus in the Caribbean may matter more than the actual results, given that the hosts don’t even have a place at February’s Champions Trophy to offer a short-term focus for their efforts.
For England, however, this is a golden opportunity for their next generation to stake claims for integral roles in the coming Bazball-ification of the white-ball team. Brendon McCullum won’t be getting his feet under the table until the tour of India in January, but his influence is already palpable.
The cross-pollination of players – with Jordan Cox and Rehan Ahmed joining from the Pakistan tour and Jacob Bethell soon to take the opposite route to New Zealand – reinforces the sense that one philosophy is about to take hold across all three squads, and so it probably doesn’t matter where and how you make your case … Big Bazzer Will Be Watching You.
And so, in the short term at least, cohesive strategies will probably matter less than well-crafted cameos. With Jos Buttler extending his absence from professional cricket into a fifth month, and with Harry Brook – his heir apparent – tied up on Test duty, Liam Livingstone gets an unlikely shot at the captaincy, just weeks after he was initially cut from England’s ODI plans against Australia.
He takes charge of a squad that features five potential 50-over debutants, from the restlessly ambitious Cox, to the fast-tracked leg spinner Jafer Chohan, as well as the ubiquitous John Turner, the Hampshire fast bowler who has been mentioned in dispatches for more than a year already but might finally get his opening in these coming games.
More established names ought to relish this opportunity too. Sam Curran, for instance, was wondering out loud last month whether his face fitted in the Bazball era, given his lack of extreme pace and height runs counter to the attributes that England’s selectors have been advocating of late. The fact that he was overlooked as Buttler’s stand-in might confirm his paranoia too. But he was player of the match in his last ODI in Antigua, and that will surely count for something.
Phil Salt is another who might be grateful for the absence of the multi-format players. The Caribbean was the scene of his breakthrough as a T20I opener, with twin hundreds on England’s last visit, but in the 50-over format, he failed to make it out of the powerplay in any of the five matches against Australia, even if his 45 from 27 at Bristol last month was a rowdy way to sign off for the summer.
They’ll be coming up against a West Indies team with a proud home record against England. In addition to their two-decade unbeaten run in Tests, they’ve won each of their last three home white-ball series against the visitors, including a 2-1 win in the corresponding ODI campaign in December 2023.
Between the wily left-arm spin of Gudakesh Motie and the pace prowess of Alzarri Joseph and Jayden Seales, West Indies have invariably found the requisite firepower to blunt England’s hard-hitters, and they’ve rarely lacked muscle with the bat themselves. It ought to be high-octane cricket over the coming days, in front of eager crowds of autumnal English sun-seekers. But quite what any of it will prove, the jury will remain out on that, at least until the new year.
Approximately 12 months ago at this time, England were in India for the 2023 ODI World Cup which was easily their most embarrassing tournament in the format since the 2015 World Cup. If that tournament gave a hint that transition was due in their white-ball cricket, the 2024 T20 World Cup format gave a stronger argument for that process to be initiated.
A first step in that direction was seen at home this summer during the white-ball series against Australia. This trip to West Indies is another opportunity for England as they look to build towards the 2025 Champions Trophy.
Jos Buttler’s last-minute exit due to unsatisfactory progress in his rehab means that Liam Livingstone is poised for his first stint as England captain. The squad has a more familiar feel to it when compared to the white-ball series against Australia last month.
The three fresh faces in that regard are Rehan Ahmed, Michael-Kyle Pepper and Jafer Chohan. All-rounder Sam Curran is also back in the ODI format after having been ignored for the Australia series. While Chohan and Ahmed are potent additions in the wrist spin department, England will be curious to see if they have the temperament to succeed Adil Rashid in the long run.
Pepper’s inclusion is more on his unorthodox gameplay that has made heads turn whenever he has clicked, be it in the T20 Blast or in The Hundred. He could potentially be in line to open with Phil Salt as England continue to explore their batting depth. With Harry Brook and Jamie Smith being rested for this tour, it is an opportunity for England’s fringes to stake a claim into the first-choice setup. The challenge will equally be there for Livingstone who is eager to cement his ODI future after having been in and out of the side in recent years.
For West Indies, it is a continued battle of getting the right tempo to batting in this format. Given their natural inclination for a T20 methodology, the batters have often been guilty of not stepping up in terms of temperament.
The recent series in Sri Lanka was a great example of this. Barring Sherfane Rutherford, none of the batters put up a fight in the first two ODIs of the series which West Indies lost comprehensively. The final game of the series was marred by rain and West Indies were eventually set a 23-over chase which they aced with an over to spare.
Their inconsistencies in the longer formats are well documented but the Caribbean stars are known to raise their game against England, especially in home conditions. The two teams battled in West Indies last year in December for a hard-fought series that England won by a narrow 2-1 margin. Shai Hope will once again be the glue around which West Indies’ batting revolves but the way Rutherford has adapted himself to the format will boost the morale in the hosts’ camp.
Shimron Hetmyer makes a comeback in this series and that further bolsters West Indies’ line-up that also has an efficient bowling line-up for these conditions. A lot would also boil down to the kind of pitches that would be on show for this series. Despite plenty of experience in West Indies’ ranks as opposed to England’s rookie-filled squad, it is tough to give either team the favourites tag.
WI vs ENG : In the spotlight – Evin Lewis and Liam Livingstone
England fans may remember Evin Lewis from his astonishing onslaught at the Kia Oval in 2017, right at the apex of England’s white-ball revolution. On a cool autumnal afternoon, he blazed a remarkable 176 not out from 130 balls with 17 fours and seven sixes, and was firmly on course for West Indies’ second ODI double-hundred when he inside-edged a yorker onto his ankle and retired hurt with a hairline fracture.
That was the third of his five ODI hundreds to date – a tally that only Shai Hope among contemporary West Indies cricketers can beat – and the most recent came only last week against Sri Lanka in Kandy: a 61-ball onslaught, sealed with a match winning six. Remarkably, that was Lewis’ first ODI appearance for more than three years, but as his captain Hope put it at the post-match presentations, “he picked up where he left off”.
Barely six weeks have elapsed since Liam Livingstone was called up as an injury replacement for Jos Buttler, after his calf injury ruled him out of the ODI series against Australia. Now, he’s been handed a more remarkable promotion still – stepping directly into the skipper’s shoes as England’s sixth captain of 2024. He returns on the crest of a relative wave, after recently rising to become the leading T20I allrounder in the ICC’s rankings. But his returns in ODI cricket remain hit-and-miss.
His blistering 62 not out from 27 balls against Australia at Lord’s contained a stunning seven sixes, but was also his first half-century in 14 innings since another dramatic intervention, 95 not out from 78 balls, against New Zealand in September 2023. In between whiles he went missing (along with most of his team-mates, to be fair) at the 50-over World Cup in India.
His multi-faceted spin bowling remains a vital means of balancing England’s XIs, however, and a strong showing in this series will set him on course for a shot at redemption in the Champions Trophy.
WI vs ENG : Vital Stats that matters
- West Indies have won seven of their previous 18 ODIs at the Sir Vivian Richards Ground in Antigua, five of which have come in their last six appearances since 2017.
- Their most recent match at the venue, however, was a six-wicket defeat against England in December 2023.
- Evin Lewis needs 51 runs to reach 2000 in ODIs.
WI vs ENG : Team News : Debuts in prospect for England
West Indies
Shimron Hetmyer has been recalled to the side in place of Alick Athanaze, who looked out of sorts against Sri Lanka and got dropped for the third game. Hetmyer’s addition will certainly bolster the batting line-up for the home side. He is expected to directly walk into the playing CI because of his match-winning ability and experience of handling pressure situations.
West Indies Playing XI – Brandon King, Evin Lewis, Keacy Carty, Shai Hope(wk./C), Sherfane Rutherford, Shimron Hetmyer, Roston Chase, Gudakesh Motie, Matthew Forde, Alzarri Joseph, Jayden Seales.
England
The squeeze on this series, from Test tours of Pakistan at one end and New Zealand at the other, mean a swathe of multi-format players will be missing in the coming days, including Brook and Ben Duckett, whose century against Australia in Bristol was a perfect translation of his Bazball tempo from five-day to 50 overs.
Cox, fresh from the Pakistan tour, will be one of several players earmarked for ODI debut in the coming days, while Buttler’s absence means Michael Pepper, his injury replacement, could be another. More likely, perhaps, given the rough hierarchy that governs England’s opportunities, is that Will Jacks gets a chance to open, and Dan Mousley – overlooked for a debut against Australia – gets first dibs in the middle order.
England have several inexperienced players in their line-up, especially in the batting department. The spotlight will be on Jacob Bethell, as the all-rounder garnered a lot of praise from fans as well as experts for his gritty performances against the Aussies.
England Playing XI – Philip Salt (wk.), Will Jacks, Dan Mousley, Liam Livingstone (C), Jacob Bethell, Sam Curran, Saqib Mahmood, Reece Topley, Adil Rashid, Jamie Overton, Jofra Archer.
WI vs ENG Fantasy XI : Shai Hope, Phil Salt, Liam Livingstone, Sherfane Rutherford, Sam Curran, Roston Chase, Will Jacks, Romario Shepherd ,Adil Rashid, Gudakesh Motie, Jofra Archer
WI vs ENG : Match Prediction
Notably, England is short of many key players as well as their captain. Hence, it is a big challenge for their youngsters to grab a victory in the series. On the other hand, West Indies will have a home advantage in their favor.
Scenario 1
West Indies win the toss and opt to bat first
PP Score: 50-60
WI: 270-280
West Indies win the match
Scenario 2
England win the toss and opt to bat first
PP Score: 60-70
ENG: 290-300
England to win the match