West Indies eye farewell victory

West Indies must be gagging to board the flight home now. It has been a torrid tour: they haven’t won, the weather has been poor and political discussions have again done plenty to overshadow their cricket. At least their last engagement is only 40 overs long; and the lottery of Twenty20 cricket perhaps provides their best chance of victory. They can take heart from their last T20 in England, in September 2011, when a far less experienced side than that which will line up at Trent Bridge beat the world champions in the format. Like the ODI series, many people would start them as favourites because of the power of their hitters—West Indies have more guys that can clear the ropes than England.

 

But they have to do some actual hitting in order to win and we saw little of their potential in the two one-day matches, when West Indies were quickly snuffed out by England’s superb bowling attack.It will be with the ball that England will look to put down a marker, a few months out from the defence of their World Twenty20 crown in September. Jade Dernbach—whose pace and variations are best suited to T20–could make an emotional appearance, less than a week after the death of his Surrey team-mate Tom Maynard. He held his nerve to win England the deciding T20I in Abu Dhabi in February and will look to push his case for inclusion in the other formats.

 

West Indies squad: Dwayne Smith, Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels, Kieron Pollard,  Dwayne Bravo, Darren Sammy (capt), Andre Russell, Denesh Ramdin Tino Best, Sunil Narine, Ravi Rampaul.