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Saturday, July 5, 2025

Fever Pitch as Windies aim to send champs packing

by

20160620

Ac­tion in the Ballr Tri-se­ries will reach fever pitch to­day, as the West In­dies aim to send world cham­pi­ons Aus­tralia pack­ing, as a win by the re­gion­al team will put them in­to the fi­nals against South Africa.

Sun­day's washout be­tween Aus­tralia and South Africa has put added spice to the close­ly con­test­ed se­ries and if West In­dies win, they will move on to 12 points and leave Aus­tralia out in the cold with 11 points. They will then meet South Africa in the ti­tle match on Sun­day al­so at Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos be­cause the Pro­teas lead the stand­ings with 12 points.

If Aus­tralia takes to­day's bat­tle which gets un­der­way at 1 pm, they will qual­i­fy for the fi­nals with 15 points and it will leave West In­dies and South Africa to bat­tle for the fi­nal slot. It will be a straight shootout be­tween the West In­dies and South Africa in that game be­cause ac­cord­ing to tour­na­ment rules, if teams are locked on the same points, the one with more wins will qual­i­fy. If West In­dies win they would have 12 points just like the Africans but they will have one more win.

The West In­dies se­lec­tors have dropped Jerome Tay­lor from the squad, forc­ing at least one change to their XI. Fast bowler Shan­non Gabriel and off­spin­ner Ash­ley Nurse must both be hop­ing for an ODI de­but in this match. In­clud­ing Nurse would leave Ja­son Hold­er and Car­los Brath­waite as the on­ly pace op­tions, so Gabriel would ap­pear the more like­ly debu­tant.

On the Aus­tralian side Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland came in for Travis Head, Adam Zam­pa and Nathan Coul­ter-Nile. Maxwell and Starc are like­ly to re­tain their places but Boland, with lit­tle crick­et be­hind him, is ex­pect­ed to make way for this must-win clash.

Aus­tralia's se­lec­tors must de­cide whether to go for pace and bring Coul­ter-Nile back, or per­haps more like­ly, re­call the im­pres­sive young legspin­ner Zam­pa, who was left out against South Africa on­ly be­cause of the wet con­di­tions.

Mean­while, the West In­dies has sur­prised many dur­ing this se­ries and has been com­pet­i­tive against the world num­ber one team Aus­tralia and the num­ber three ranked team South Africa. Ranked eighth go­ing in­to the tour­na­ment the West In­dies have gained five valu­able points. The West In­dies had start­ed the se­ries on 88 points and can po­ten­tial­ly move ahead of sev­enth-ranked Bangladesh if they win this tour­na­ment.

TEAMS

Aus­tralia: Aaron Finch, Us­man Khawa­ja, Steven Smith (capt), George Bai­ley, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Marsh, Matthew Wade (wk), James Faulkn­er, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zam­pa, Josh Ha­zle­wood.

West In­dies: An­dre Fletch­er, John­son Charles, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Mar­lon Samuels, De­nesh Ramdin (wk), Kieron Pol­lard, Ja­son Hold­er (capt), Car­los Brath­waite, Sunil Nar­ine, Sulie­man Benn, Shan­non Gabriel, Ash­ley Nurse.

STAND­INGS

Team P W L NR T PTS NNR

South Africa 5 2 2 1 0 12 +0.697

Aus­tralia 5 2 2 1 0 10 +0.416

West In­dies 4 2 2 0 0 8 -1.189


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