Watch cricket video highlights of England tour of West Indies 2024. First ODI between West Indies and England. Venue of the match will be North Sound.
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A very centered strip indicates that border dimensions are more or less uniform. With four journeys to the Caribbean in the last three years, England’s top players are well accustomed to the crosswinds that may help or hinder any batter’s attempts to clear the ropes. Conflicting rain reports may also cause some confusion. The pressure on this series from Test tours of Pakistan and New Zealand means that a number of multi-format players will be missing in the coming days, including Brook and Ben Duckett, whose century against Australia in Bristol was a perfect translation of his Bazball tempo from five-day to 50 overs.
Cox, who just returned from a tour of Pakistan, is one of many players set to make their ODI debuts in the coming days, while Buttler’s injured substitute, Michael Pepper, might be another. Given the rough hierarchy that dictates England’s opportunities, it is more likely that Will Jacks will open, and Dan Mousley, who was passed over for a debut against Australia, will bat first in the middle order. Shimron Hetmyer’s return is the sole alteration from the West Indies’ ODI team that played (and won) the last of three matches against Sri Lanka on Saturday, so consistency appears to be the order of the day.
He is expected to bat in the middle order, with 17-year-old Jewel Andrew, who made his international debut in the Kandy match, the apparent replacement. There is plenty of time for him to return. Romario Shepherd might potentially make a comeback after missing that same encounter. England supporters may recall Evin Lewis’ amazing attack at the Kia Oval in 2017, at the height of England’s white-ball renaissance. On a crisp October afternoon, he scorched a stunning 176 not out from 130 balls, including 17 fours and seven sixes, and was well on his way to West Indies’ second ODI double-hundred when he inside-edged a yorker onto his ankle and departed injured with a hairline fracture.
That was the third of his five ODI hundreds to date, a total only Shai Hope among modern West Indies batsmen can match, and the most recent came last week against Sri Lanka in Kandy: a 61-ball assault capped by a match-winning six. That was Lewis’ first ODI appearance in more over three years, but as his skipper Hope described it at the post-match ceremonies, “he picked up where he left off”. Liam Livingstone was called in as an injury substitute for Jos Buttler just six weeks ago, when his calf injury forced him to miss the ODI series against Australia.
Now, he’s been given an even more amazing promotion: he’ll take over as England’s sixth captain in 2024. He returns on the crest of a relative wave, having just risen to become the top T20I allrounder in the ICC rankings. However, his performance in one-day international cricket has been inconsistent. His explosive 62 not out from 27 balls against Australia at Lord’s included seven sixes, but it was also his first half-century in 14 innings since a sensational performance of 95 not out from 78 balls against New Zealand in September 2023.
In the meanwhile, he went AWOL (along with the majority of his teammates, to be fair) at the 50-over World Cup in India. His versatile spin bowling remains an important part in balancing England’s XIs, and a successful performance in this series will put him up for an opportunity at redemption in the Champions Trophy.
Are you keeping up in the back? England’s Test squad has just returned home from Pakistan, licking their wounds after a 2-1 series defeat, but they are already planning their next three-Test tour of New Zealand in less than three weeks. And now, to bridge the gap between those two major endeavors, a different England group has been deployed to the Caribbean on its fourth tour in three years, continuing the reset of their white-ball fortunes following two disappointing World Cup defenses.
This is the sweet spot of England’s post-Covid fixture congestion: a series so crammed that it’s difficult to interpret the players chosen, let alone the predicted results. According to Jason Holder of ESPNcricinfo, the ECB’s repayment of its loans to the West Indies following his team’s efforts during the lockdown summer of 2020 is a big role in the scheduling of this trip, and so there is a transactional component to the next eight games that cannot be overlooked.
The financial stimulation in the Caribbean may be more important than the actual outcomes, considering that the hosts do not even have a spot in February’s Champions Trophy to provide a short-term focus for their efforts. For England, however, this is a perfect opportunity for their future generation to make their claims for key positions in the white-ball team’s upcoming Bazballization. Brendon McCullum won’t be allowed to put his feet under the table until his tour of India in January, but his presence is already evident.
Cross-pollination of players, including Jordan Cox and Rehan Ahmed from the Pakistan tour, and Jacob Bethell’s upcoming move to New Zealand, suggests a shared philosophy across all three squads. Big Bazzer will be watching you. As a result, in the short run, well-crafted cameos are likely to outperform unified efforts. With Jos Buttler’s absence from professional cricket continuing into a sixth month and Harry Brook, his heir apparent, on Test duty, Liam Livingstone is given an unexpected opportunity at captaincy, only weeks after being dropped from England’s ODI squad against Australia.
He takes charge of a squad that includes five potential 50-over debutants, including the restlessly ambitious Cox, the fast-tracked legspinner Jafer Chohan, and the ubiquitous John Turner, the Hampshire fast bowler who has been mentioned in dispatches for more than a year but may finally get his chance in these upcoming games. Established names should also take advantage of this chance. Sam Curran, for example, wondered aloud last month if his face belonged in the Bazball age, given that his lack of extreme pace and height contradicts the traits that England’s selectors have recently advocated. The fact that he was ignored as Buttler’s stand-in might further support his paranoia.
But he was the player of the match in his final ODI in Antigua, which will undoubtedly count for something. Phil Salt is another person who may be thankful for the absence of multi-format players. His T20I breakthrough came in the Caribbean, with twin hundreds on England’s most recent visit, but in the 50-over format, he failed to make it out of the powerplay in any of Australia’s five matches, despite his 45 from 27 at Bristol last month, which was a rowdy way to end the summer. They will go up against a West Indies squad that has a strong home record against England.
In addition to their two-decade unbroken Test record, they have won each of their previous three home white-ball series against the visitors, including a 2-1 victory in the matching ODI campaign in December 2023. With the cunning left-arm spin of Gudakesh Motie and the speed skills of Alzarri Joseph and Jayden Seales, the West Indies have always found the necessary firepower to dull England’s hard-hitters, and they’ve seldom lacked batsmanship. Over the next several days, expect high-octane cricket in front of hungry audiences of fall English sun-seekers. But what any of it will prove remains to be seen, at least until the new year.
