England Watch!
Chris Stocks reports from the one-day series in the Caribbean
THE one contest that is sure to capture the imagination during England’s one-day series in the Caribbean is the resumption of hostilities between Ben Stokes and Carlos Brathwaite.
West Indies are shorn of almost all of their big-name players for these three matches because of political wrangling.
But the one man who remains is the big-hitting Barbados allrounder who smoked Stokes for four successive sixes to win his side last year’s World T20 in India.
That final-over assault not only left Stokes prone on the turf of Kolkata’s Eden Gardens but also robbed England of the silverware that would have offered concrete evidence of their limited-overs renaissance since their humiliating firstround exit from the last 50-over World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
With eight matches before their Champions Trophy campaign starts on June 1 against Bangladesh at The Oval, England are gearing up for another chance to land their first major ODI trophy.
A weakened West Indies team who have not even qualified for that tournament should provide easy opposition.
But, perhaps with Brathwaite in mind, Stokes, fresh from landing a £1.7million Indian Premier League deal last week, is keen to play down talk of any mismatch.
“Just because they haven’t made the Champions Trophy, we can’t be going into this series thinking any less of them,” said the Durham allrounder.
“We know how destructive a team they can be, especially with the bat. They’ve all got the power to hit the ball out of the ground at will so we can’t be going into this series with our foot off the gas.
“We can’t be taking this team lightly whatsoever – and if we do that, then it’s dangerous territory for us to be in.”
It’s a theme picked up by Paul Farbrace, England assistant who is in charge on this tour while coach Trevor Bayliss takes a break.
“You want to play the best teams you can but we can’t get involved in which players they select,” he said. “I don’t think we are going to fall into any trap and talk about them not being a good side. They are playing at home and we’ve got to play really well.
“You’d expect me to say that – I’m not going to say we’re going to win 3-0 and they are not very good. That’s not respecting the opposition. Whoever we play will be a decent side.”
England’s batting pretty much looks after itself, even if opener Alex Hales is likely to miss the first two games of this series with the broken hand he sustained in India in January.
Jos Buttler, who had a poor tour of India, also needs runs.
Yet it is the bowling attack that must sharpen up its act ahead of the Champions Trophy.
Tom Curran was summoned from the England Lions tour of Sri Lanka this week as injury cover for Jake Ball, who sustained a knee injury in the final warm-up match against a West Indies Board President’s XI in St Kitts on Saturday.
Ball could yet play in this series, as could Curran, whose form for Surrey over the past two summers and the Lions this winter earned him his first England call-up.
Liam Plunkett, at 31 an old stager in this squad, knows the bowlers need to start performing if England are going to realise their potential.
But he believes they should not shy away from trying to emulate the batsmen by being attacking – even if they do go for runs.
“It’s good that we do attack,” he said. “I think over the last 18 months that’s the difference: we don’t really go into our shell if teams get on top of us; we keep attacking, with the field as well.
“It’s the mentality: we want to take wickets. Sometimes we might go for runs but we might pick up two or three wickets in an over and then you’ve pretty much won the game.
“When I first started playing if you went for a six it was like the end of the world – you’d be devastated – but now everyone gets clipped around.
“It’s the ‘next ball’ mentality. If a guy has hit 20 off five balls but you then get him out, that’s going to be a massive ball in the game.”
West Indies will have a new coach for this series in former Australia and Essex batsman Stuart Law.
Law has the unenviable task of trying to make a weakened West Indies competitive on the world stage again.
But a man who was Bayliss’ assistant during the England coach’s stint with Sri Lanka admits he will adopt the laidback template used by his former boss to try and revive his new team’s fortunes.
“I’m here to oversee the whole thing, I don’t want to be shouting telling them what to do,” said Law. “I’m sitting back and enjoying what I’m seeing, putting the pieces together in the background.
“It is Trevor Bayliss. I learned a lot from TB, I saw the success that he had doing that and you’d be mad not to take a little bit from it.
“When the game starts I get more emotional, but overall it is an Australian way – to have faith in your players being prepared as well as they can be, the result then relies on how we turn up on the day.”
And that contest between Stokes and Brathwaite?
“Carlos is a great young kid, he had that success but now he’s looking to become more of a cricketer than just a basher,” said Law.
“That World T20 final was pretty awesome to watch. What was evident for me was his effortless power – he just defended balls for six.
“He’s a talent. It was a time when his team needed him and he just produced, and hopefully he can do that in the future, but he wants to be seen as a cricketer.You have to make sure the technique is there because they all have the power.”
England squad: Eoin Morgan (captain), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Jake Ball, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler (wk), Tom Curran, Liam Dawson, Steven Finn, Alex Hales, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes