England’s ‘biggest year in a generation’ starts with WI test
LONDON: England begin a 2019 that England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chief executive Tom Harrison believes represents a “once in a generation” opportunity with a West Indies tour that could yet prove uncomfortably awkward.
With both a World Cup -- a tournament England have never won -- and an Ashes series at home, it will be a challenge to maintain focus.
A three-test tour and fivematch one-day series in the Caribbean, which gets underway next week, should provide a barometer of England’s progress.
Joe Root’s Test side are second in world rankings while Eoin Morgan’s men top the ODI standings. England, fresh from an emphatic away Test series win in Sri Lanka, will be favourites. Yet they have won only one Test series in the West Indies since 1968.
Root’s men will have to cope with the pressure of being over- whelming favourites to beat a struggling West Indies side who will be coached by an Englishman in the recently-appointed Richard Pybus.
STAKES HIGH
For England, the stakes are even higher in what will be Australian coach Trevor Bayliss’s final year in charge before stepping down. Following their miserable first-round exit at the 2 0 1 5 Wo r l d C u p , f o r me r England captain turned ECB supremo Andrew Strauss, made limited-overs cricket a priority.
This year’s edition will prove the worth of that policy.
The fact the Ashes and the World Cup fall in the same season -- it hasn’t happened since the inaugural 1975 World Cup in England -- could provide the ECB with a massive opportunity to connect with a wider British sporting public who have lost contact with the game.