England v West Indies

Twenty20 / Editor / 29 June 2007 / Leave a Comment

Sunday 10:45 (Lord's)

West Indies will seek to salvage some pride from a wretched tour in this three-match One Day series. A 3-0 humbling in the Test series has been compounded by a tour-ending injury to their captain Ramnaresh Sarwan and a dispute between Chris Gayle, his stand-in, and the West Indies cricket board.

The tourists responded with a victory in the opening Twenty20 encounter and it is the hosts who are now under pressure to perform in the 50-over format, having experienced a similarly disappointing World Cup campaign as the tourists did.

The new Peter Moores and Paul Collingwood leadership axis will be anxious not to let the tourists finish on a high note, as England did in Australia in the winter after a one-sided Test series. England are 1.41 favourites to take the first game of the three-match series.

However, West Indies (2.22 for victory at Lord's) will not start as such clear outsiders at Lord's on Sunday as England did down under, despite their hammering in the Tests. The last 10 completed ODIs have brought five wins apiece and the consensus seems to be that they are as bad as each other.

Ranked seventh and eighth in the world, both teams have no choice but to refresh their ODI plans after having their limitations exposed in the Caribbean. England in particular needed a new direction, after pursuing an outdated batting tactic of steady accumulation without consideration of the need to find the boundary early.

Michael Vaughan was one of the guilty parties at the top of the order and his jettisoning suggests his modest ODI career is over. The selectors have leaned towards players who will be around for the 2011 World Cup and Vaughan, 33 in October, is unlikely to be available for that tournament.

Andrew Strauss and Ed Joyce's omission is due more to their lack of recent form. As well as being short of Test runs, Strauss has hit just one ODI half-century in his last 14 knocks and his Middlesex colleague's record after 17 matches is very similar to Vaughan's: average 27.7 and strike rate 66.43.

Their places have gone to the more aggressive Owais Shah and Jonathan Trott. Along with the recalled Alastair Cook, they are set to be part of a new-look batting line-up. Michael Yardy has replaced Jamie Dalrymple, whilst limited overs specialist Dimitri Mascarenhas receives his first call-up.

The bowling department features a resurgent Ryan Sidebottom, as well as James Anderson, Liam Plunkett and Stuart Broad, who are given reprieves despite disappointing World Cup campaigns. Andrew Flintoff and Ravi Bopara are missing through injury.

The tourists have largely retained their Test squad. Gayle replaces Daren Ganga as stand-in skipper and there are only three new arrivals - Dwayne Smith, Lendl Simmons and Austin Richards Jnr. The team which triumphed in the first Twenty 20 match contained two players, Smith and Ravi Rampaul, who did not play a Test.

The last meeting between the teams came in a meaningless World Cup encounter. In a match more notable as Brian Lara's last, it was England who came out on top with a one wicket win with a ball to spare.

That was England's second successive victory over West Indies after a similar consolation win in last year's ICC Champions Trophy. Kevin Pietersen scored combined 190 runs in those matches and as the world's top-ranked batsman, will surely be the hosts' key man. He has scored five fifties and two tons in his last 11 ODI innings.

As counterpart blaster in the West Indies line-up, Gayle has had a tougher time recently. Before his blistering 79 from 58 balls in that Bridgetown clash, the stand-in skipper had not passed 50 in 11 innings. He enjoys facing England though, averaging 53.54 with bat and 20.83 with ball.

Gayle will be one of three players who featured in West Indies' Champions Trophy final win over England in September 2004. Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Dwayne Bravo also featured in that stunning comeback win, when Ian Bradshaw and Courtney Brown put on 71 for the ninth wicket in bowler-friendly conditions.

West Indies have won 13 and lost 13 of their completed ODIs in England, with four wins coming in the last five. They have won four and lost four at Lord's, cruising home by seven wickets in the 2004 NatWest series clash, thanks to Gayle's unbeaten 132.

England failed to reach the final of that tournament, which also featured New Zealand. Seven Test wins over that summer's tourists did not translate into ODI superiority, which has been a common theme for England in recent years.

Their unexpected late surge in the Commonwealth Bank series down under brought a rare series victory. Since hosting West Indies and New Zealand in 2004, England have played in 10 ODI series, excluding Champions Trophies and the World Cup.

They have won three series - against India at home, Zimbabwe away and the recent triangular series with Australia and the Kiwis. They have lost five series and have drawn twice, sharing the 2005 NatWest tournament with Australia and a five match series with Pakistan last summer.

That 2-2 draw followed the One Day team's nadir in recent times, a 5-0 hammering by Sri Lanka. The muddled selection and tactics that characterised that series set the tone for the World Cup, but England have at least moved on from that series: from the team that lost by eight wickets at Headingley, only Ian Bell, Alastair Cook and Liam Plunkett have a chance of featuring on Sunday.

Headquarters has not produced run feasts in its recent ODIs. Since England and India plundered 651 runs in 2002, the average first innings score from 10 matches has been 220.2, with England succumbing for 166 in the last match against Pakistan last September. Nine of the last 10 toss-winning captains have fielded first and 58.5% of wins have been achieved by chasing.

The series moves to Birmingham on Wednesday with the final match taking place at Trent Bridge on Saturday July 7th. The hosts then have a 12-day gap to get back into Test mode ahead of India's visit.