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Thursday, July 3, 2025

Going for the Win

by

20150430

BRIDGETOWN–West In­dies must win to draw the se­ries against Eng­land when the third and fi­nal match in the three test se­ries be­gins at Kens­ing­ton oval to­day.The home­side looks set to make some changes to the team which squan­dered a po­si­tion of strength, seems to be forc­ing a draw but im­plod­ed and al­lowed the vis­i­tors to cruise to a com­fort­able nine wick­et win in at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Grena­da's fol­low­ing the drawn game in An­tigua.

Key strike bowler Jerome Tay­lor, who missed the sec­ond test through in­jury, is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to bol­ster the Windies at­tack on a Bridgetown pitch which is an­tic­i­pat­ed to pro­vide pace and bounce.He is like­ly to re­place pac­er Ke­mar Roach who has had a poor se­ries man­ag­ing five wick­ets for 53 so far.

Left-arm spin­ner Veerasam­my Per­maul has been added to the Test squad and will re­place leg-spin­ner De­ven­dra Bishoo who suf­fered a cut to his ring fin­ger in the right hand and is be­ing treat­ed by the med­ical staff."Bishoo did well for us in the sec­ond Test in Grena­da but he has a fin­ger in­jury so we de­cid­ed to call-up Per­maul," said head Coach Phil Sim­mons.

"He (Per­maul) was among the best bowlers in the four-day crick­et ear­li­er this sea­son, and he al­so bowled well in the camp ahead of this se­ries � so he's in good shape."Per­maul, 25, made his de­but in 2012 and has played four Test match­es so far with 12 wick­ets at an av­er­age of 37 runs per wick­et.He was the lead­ing wick­et-tak­er in the WICB's Pro­fes­sion­al Crick­et League Four-Day Tour­na­ment this year with 67 wick­ets at 14 runs each.

A late de­ci­sion is ex­pect­ed to be made on seam­er Ja­son Hold­er's fit­ness af­ter he in­jured his left an­kle dur­ing his de­liv­ery stride while bowl­ing his sec­ond over in the sec­ond in­nings of the sec­ond Test in Grena­da.Vet­er­an mid­dle or­der bats­man Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul could be un­der pres­sure to per­form hav­ing on­ly passed fifty once in his last nine Test in­nings.Chan­der­paul is yet to record a big score as he edges to­wards Bri­an Lara's West In­dies Test runs record.

"We need to come hard at the Eng­lish," de­clared Cap­tain De­nesh Ramdin."We are one down, so we need to play a lit­tle more ag­gres­sive and pos­i­tive crick­et."There are re­ports that Eng­land may be con­sid­er­ing some changes to the team which se­cured the one-nil se­ries lead in Grena­da last week.Chris Jor­dan is said to be un­der pres­sure to prove his worth in Eng­land's at­tack af­ter tak­ing five wick­ets at 45.60 in the se­ries.

Ben Stokes, who is seen as an at­trac­tive op­tion with his all-round abil­i­ty, is suf­fer­ing with a sore back and could miss out."The nor­mal in­cli­na­tion is to go with the same team be­cause you like to give peo­ple the con­fi­dence that they are not al­ways play­ing for their place," said Alas­tair Cook, the Eng­land cap­tain."You get sta­bil­i­ty when you're win­ning and every­one knows their role in the team.

CMC


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