Twenty20 / Ed Hawkins / 13 March 2009 /

England have now gone 12 matches without a win in all formats away from home. And England are hardly world-beaters when it comes to Twenty20, says Ed Hawkins, who agrees the West Indies' record in this format isn't great either, but still makes them the value call.

England's winless winter of discontent reached a nadir with a Test series defeat in West Indies. The prospect of victory in the Twenty20 international in Trinidad on Sunday would greatly warm the heart.

Utterly deflated by the failure to level the rubber in Port of Spain on Tuesday, England have gone 12 matches in all formats without success on the road since their home season ended. Even if this thrash and bash is the least important of all of them, they would celebrate as if it was the opposite.

Somewhat surprisingly, given the teams' respective confidence levels, England, who should have Andrew Flintoff available, are favourites at [1.72] with the hosts [2.20]. There is not much to choose between the two, however, in actual ability in Twenty20.

A mere 0.11 runs separate them in terms of run rate while England average 17 fewer runs for average totals when batting first. For the purpose of match runs markets, those figures in black and white are: West Indies 167 and England 150.

Rather like the Test series was a meeting of two mediocre teams, the same can be said here. England have won six from 14 matches and West Indies three from 10.

On form then, England have a slight edge although the difference in odds can probably be best explained by the absence of captain Chris Gayle for the Windies. True, the loss of his potential fast starts are a blow but consider this: of West Indies' two victories in Twenty20, Gayle missed both.

Denesh Ramdin will skipper West Indies and he will be boosted by the return of stellar all-rounder Dwayne Bravo to the squad. Bravo has been out of action for six months following ankle surgery.

Bravo's inclusion gives West Indies a strong-looking unit. Darren Sammy, an all-rounder who has caused England problems in the past, is there as is Andre Fletcher and Kieron Pollard. Familiar names to those who watched the 2020 for $20m farce last year.

Sammy took 2 for 13 in the money match when the All Stars - effectively West Indies - bowled out England for just 99. England will claim that match has no bearing but it is one of the strongest pointers for us to go on - West Indies are making a habit of hurting England.

The sides have met only twice before under their proper banners. At The Oval in 2007, the teams won a game apiece. England drew first blood with a five-wicket victory with Gayle and Owais Shah top-scoring respectively. In the second game, England went down by 15 runs when chasing - a significant trend.

In the eight matches that they have been asked to reach a target, England have lost in six of them. For all the claims and counter claims of the information above, it is the one statistic that marks West Indies clearly as the value bet.

The top runscorer market is a confusing one to call. A sidelined Gayle makes it difficult to predict who will partner Devon Smith at the head of the innings. Ramnaresh Sarwan, England's slayer, would be a good call. He did the job in West Indies' last Twenty20 match in New Zealand, top-scoring in the process. In the three matches without Gayle, the opening combos have twice featured Smith, one of them pairing him with Ramdin.

England went with Ian Bell and Matt Prior in the Stanford match, a switch from Bell and Luke Wright in their previous international against New Zealand. How they will accommodate new captain Andrew Strauss remains to be seen.

If he opens the batting, it will mark a return to the bad old days of England failing to recognize the importance of a pinch-hitter. But then again, things could hardly be any worse for them at the moment.

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