NORTH SOUND, An­tigua – West In­dies cap­tain Shai Hope said his side will start an­oth­er re­build with an eye on the fu­ture when they face Eng­land in the first One-day In­ter­na­tion­al on Sun­day in An­tigua.

The 30-year-old wick­et­keep­er-bats­man said there was a pos­i­tive vibe in the side, and he ex­pect­ed it to spill over on­to the field in the hope that his side could erase the mem­o­ry of the Caribbean side fail­ing to ap­pear at an ICC Men’s ODI World Cup for the first time last month in In­dia.

“I feel a dif­fer­ent buzz, a very pos­i­tive buzz around,” he told re­porters on the eve of the match at the Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Ground. “Once we are do­ing the hard work off the field, things will hap­pen for us.

“I think we must let go of the past. It’s his­to­ry for a rea­son. We have to cre­ate our own his­to­ry be­cause we have a lot of things to fo­cus up­on go­ing for­ward, and right now, it’s what is in front of us, and it’s this se­ries.

“We know that Eng­land is a very com­pet­i­tive side, but we have all the right, and nec­es­sary play­ers to do the job for us, so we are look­ing for­ward to this se­ries.

“We are try­ing to re­build the team and find our true brand and fo­cus on the things we have been speak­ing about through­out all the meet­ings over the last few months and see­ing it come to fruition. I think that we have been work­ing re­al­ly hard, and it’s just about get­ting some per­for­mances and some wins un­der our belt.”

Much of the build-up to the match sur­round­ed the omis­sion of West In­dies Su­per50 Cup-win­ning cap­tain Dar­ren Bra­vo of Trinidad & To­ba­go Red Force, while Shane Dowrich re­tired from the in­ter­na­tion­al stage af­ter be­ing se­lect­ed in the squad and be­ing part of the prepara­to­ry train­ing camp.

Al­so, there is no Ja­son Hold­er be­cause of his fo­cus shift­ing to Tests and Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­als, while left-arm spin­ner Akeal Ho­sein, left-hand­ed bats­man Nicholas Pooran, and am­bidex­trous all-rounder Kyle May­ers – all ODI reg­u­lars in the past cou­ple of years – have cho­sen the Abu Dhabi Ten10 tour­na­ment over in­ter­na­tion­al du­ty.

Much of West In­dies’ suc­cess in this se­ries will rest on the bat­ting of Hope, who needs on­ly 60 runs to cross over the 5,000-run mark in the ODI for­mat, a mile­stone that he said meant noth­ing if the team does not ben­e­fit and starts to win.

“Every time I do things for West In­dies to win that makes me feel proud – not try­ing to tick any par­tic­u­lar stats box,” he said. “I am just try­ing to win games, but you look back some­times and give thanks for these achieve­ments.

“As a young crick­eter, when you were watch­ing the leg­ends of the game that we are go­ing to see around this par­tic­u­lar se­ries, you as­pire to be like them, and do­ing things that they have been do­ing over the years and be­ing called in some con­ver­sa­tions that they have been. It means a lot, but I want to mix these per­for­mances with some wins for the team.”

Eng­land, the pre­vi­ous cham­pi­ons, per­formed dis­mal­ly at the World Cup, win­ning on­ly three of their nine match­es, and ex­it­ed the tour­na­ment in shame af­ter the pre­lim­i­nary stage.

Against this back­drop, they too, are look­ing to hit the re­set but­ton and seek­ing to chart a new course in this for­mat of the sport.

On­ly their cap­tain Jos But­tler, Gus Atkin­son, Har­ry Brook, Bry­don Carse, Liam Liv­ing­stone, and Sam Cur­ran sur­vived from the World Cup squad, with many se­nior play­ers be­ing giv­en a break ahead of the Test se­ries against In­dia in Jan­u­ary, so they may be ripe for West In­dies to pick off a few morale-boost­ing wins.

The square at the VR­CG was re-laid this year, and there were com­plaints from the Crick­et West In­dies Acad­e­my side that the pitch was a bit un­re­li­able dur­ing their One-day match­es against Emerg­ing Ire­land last month.

West In­dies have won their last four ODIs at the ground – one against In­dia six years ago, and three against Sri Lan­ka dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic pe­ri­od two years ago – but they have lost four of their five ODIs against Eng­land at this venue.

Squads:

WEST IN­DIES (from): Shai Hope (cap­tain), Alzarri Joseph (vice-cap­tain), Al­ick Athanaze, Yan­nic Cari­ah, Kea­cy Car­ty, Ros­ton Chase, Shane Dowrich, Matthew Forde, Shim­ron Het­my­er, Bran­don King, Gu­dakesh Motie, Kjorn Ot­t­ley, Sher­fane Ruther­ford, Ro­mario Shep­herd, Os­hane Thomas.

ENG­LAND (from): Jos But­tler (cap­tain), Re­han Ahmed, Gus Atkin­son, Har­ry Brook, Bry­don Carse, Zak Craw­ley, Sam Cur­ran, Ben Duck­ett, Tom Hart­ley, Will Jacks, Liam Liv­ing­stone, Ol­lie Pope, Phil Salt, Matthew Potts, John Turn­er.

UM­PIRES: Gre­go­ry Brath­waite, Chris Brown (New Zealand).

TV UM­PIRE: Nitin Menon (In­dia).

MATCH REF­ER­EE: Sir Richie Richard­son.

RE­SERVE UM­PIRE: Nigel Duguid.