England enters the home stretch of World Cup preparation with a five-match One-Day International series beginning on Wednesday at the Kensington Oval against a West Indies team seeking to feed off the success of its Test side.
Fresh from a surprising 2-1 triumph in the Wisden Trophy duel, Jason Holder leads a Caribbean team which continues to struggle in the 50-over format and is hampered by the absence of key players for a variety of reasons.
In contrast, Eoin Morgan’s England settled squad has powered to the top of the world rankings and a comfortable 171-run victory in the lone warm-up fixture on Sunday suggests that it will not be hamstrung by the challenges encountered by the Test team against surprisingly competitive and fiercely motivated opponents.
Complete disarray
While the memory of a 381-run thrashing in the first match of the three-Test series less than a month ago is painfully fresh, England’s last ODI at Kensington Oval two years ago was a 186-run rout which completed a 3-0 sweep of a home outfit in complete disarray.
West Indies results have not improved significantly since that humbling, with the former champion missing out on the 2017 Champions Trophy and scraping through last year’s qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe to advance to the World Cup in England and Wales, which starts on May 30.
Already without mystery spinner Sunil Narine and all-rounder Andre Russell, West Indies has been forced to amend its original squad for the first two ODIs with injuries ruling out opening batsman Evin Lewis and all-rounders Rovman Powell and Keemo Paul.
Debut for Campbell?
John Campbell, who made a bright start to his Test career in the three matches against the English, looks set for an ODI debut opening the batting with Chris Gayle.
On Sunday, the 39-year-old veteran of four World Cups revealed that the 2019 event will be his farewell to the format.
T20 captain Carlos Brathwaite and left-arm pacer Sheldon Cottrell are the recent inclusions in the West Indies squad along with Campbell.
The teams:
West Indies (probable): Jason Holder (captain), Chris Gayle, John Campbell, Darren Bravo, Shai Hope (wicketkeeper), Shimron Hetmyer, Carlos Brathwaite, Ashley Nurse, Kemar Roach, Sheldon Cottrell and Oshane Thomas.
England: Eoin Morgan (captain), Jason Roy, Alex Hales, Jonny Bairstow (wicketkeeper), Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid and Mark Wood .
