Windies vs England 2019: Resurgent Windies cause a serious dent in England’s World Cup plans
efore the series, England were considered favorites to win both the Test and ODI series against a Windies side that was showing some promising signs in recent times. Despite some good performances, no one would have put their money on Windies to pose a huge threat to England.
But that’s the beauty of the beautiful game of cricket. Windies, under a resilient and confident Jason Holder, rallied and pulled off an outstanding team-effort and worked on the fragility of the England batting line-up and exploited their weakness to the fullest.
England’s inability to adapt to conditions that don’t necessarily suit their batsmen, something which coach Trevor Bayliss and ODI captain Eoin Morgan stressed upon after their humiliating defeat at St Lucia in the fifth and final ODI, will be a huge cause for concern.
They were very scratchy and lacked the basic temperament and technique to handle the quality of the Windies bowlers like Sheldon Cottrell, Jason Holder and Oshane Thomas in the ODIs and the likes of Kemar Roach and Shannon Gabriel in the Tests.
A 2-1 scoreline in the Test series, the host’s first Test series win against England since 1986 followed by equalling the ODI series 2-2 which is an achievement on its own as Windies hadn't won or drawn an ODI series in their last eighteen attempts.
From the return of “Universe Boss” Chris Gayle to the amazing talent of Thomas and Shimron Hetmyer to England’s world-beating batting line up, here’s taking a look at some points that stood out from the recently concluded ODI series.
#1 Windies have shown enough promise to be considered as World Cup contenders
Windies have been struggling to put a team together to compete against top quality sides in ODI cricket over the past few years. Various reasons have contributed to this, the ongoing contract issues between the players and the WICB, talented players choosing to play franchise cricket over the national side.
But in the past few months, there seems to be some common sense prevailing and a competitive, strong Windies side has taken the field. The return of Gayle was the biggest positive to come out for the Windies.
Overall, the team looks very balanced with batsmen like Shai Hope, Hetmyer, Darren Bravo to compliment the “Universe Boss”. The fast bowling department looks pretty dominant as well with Holder, Cottrell, Thomas, and Carlos Braithwaite.
Keeping the conditions in England where the World Cup 2019 would be played, Windies have the bowling line-up to trouble most oppositions. Kemar Roach and Shanon Gabriel didn’t feature in this ODI series, once they are back this bowling attack would get even stronger.
The biggest positives to come out of the 2-2 series result against England was that Windies have unearthed two talents in Thomas and Hetmyer who are here to stay for a long time.
The return of Andre Russell in the mix will only make this team more complete and well-balanced. Overall, the way they played in the ODI series certainly has bought back the smiles and joy of the people in the Caribbean and has increased their hopes on their team’s chances in the ICC World Cup.