West Indies cricket has been going through a very tough time of late and their latest failure was against India at home. While they are competitive in the shorter formats, it’s been a while since we’ve seen West Indies play well in test cricket.
This tour of England will be a very important one for the visitors, as they play 3 tests, 1 T20I and 5 ODIs from today until the end of September. They would need all the warm up they could get, playing a team like England at home, and that’s why they played 3 warm ups since the start of August – against Essex, Kent and Derbyshire.
All three games were drawn and the visitors weren’t too bad. Three players to watch out for West Indies in this test series, which begins today, 17th August:
- Shai Hope – 107* against Derbyshire.
- Kyle Hope – 105 against Derbyshire.
- Kemar Roach – hasn’t played test cricket since Jan 2016; 5/43 against Essex.
This will be England’s debut with the ‘Pink Ball’, and this contest promises to be an exciting one. All four previous day/night tests have been crackers, including a triple century from Azhar Ali, a 3-day result between Australia and New Zealand, and even a first day declaration by Faf du Plessis. What’s more is that Edgbaston never fails to produce memorable test matches.
England Test Squad
Joe Root (c), Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Alastair Cook, Mason Crane, Dawid Malan, Toby Roland-Jones, Ben Stokes, Mark Stoneman, Tom Westley, Chris Woakes.
West Indies Test Squad
Jason Holder (c), Kraigg Brathwaite, Devendra Bishoo, Jermaine Blackwood, Roston Chase, Miguel Cummins, Shane Dowrich, Shannon Gabriel, Shimron Hetmyer, Kyle Hope, Shai Hope, Alzarri Joseph, Kieran Powell, Raymon Reifer, Kemar Roach.
The pitch here will be good for the seamers and that’s something that will work in West Indies’ favour as they have a good range of fast bowlers in their squad. For England, Alastair Cook will have yet another new opening partner as Mark Stoneman has been brought in for Keaton Jennings.
Watch our Sports Scoops section for updates on this series.
