🏏ICC T20I WC 2024: Super 8 - Match 42: England vs West Indies at Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium, Gros Islet, St Lucia on 20/06/2024 @6:00 AM IST🏏
[Tag and Logo Credit to Wildestdreams]
Clash of heavyweights as defending champions take on hosts
High-octane duel anticipated as two-time champions go head-to-head in Super Eight
After the angst they endured in the group stage, England have floated down to St Lucia on a wave of exhalation. Whatever happens in their T20 World Cup defence from hereon in, their avoidance of a humiliating first-round exit might yet prove to be as much of a fillip as four rousing wins from four. Their campaign can begin in earnest now, which is just as well, because they are about to bump into a team with no such concerns to weigh them down.
England and West Indies are each competing for an unprecedented third T20 World Cup title, and the events at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground in Beausejour - a venue named in honour of the man who delivered the hosts those first two titles - could go some way towards confirming the readiness, or otherwise, of these two very real contenders for the crown.
West Indies are fit, focused and firing on all cylinders. They come into this contest on an eight-match unbeaten run, and if there were a few early-tournament nerves on show in an anxious pair of Group C victories over Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, then their unmitigated thrashings of Uganda and a highly-rated Afghanistan have assuaged them in uncompromising fashion.
Quite apart from the power of their recent victories, the range of West Indies' match-winners has propelled them firmly into the title mix. From Andre Russell's 71 from 29 balls against Australia in Perth, to Brandon King's 79 from 45 against South Africa in Jamaica, via Roston Chase and Johnson Charles, and all the way through to Sherfane Rutherford's innings-salvaging 68 not out against New Zealand and Nicholas Pooran's ballistic 98 from 53 balls against Afghanistan, they've time and again showcased a batting line-up with complete faith in each other's attributes, and an ability to stand up when called upon.
Only the captain, Rovman Powell, has been short of recent runs, even though a 24-ball fifty in a warm-up match against Australia is sufficient proof that his eye is still firmly in. With Sammy ensconced as head coach, and instilling the same spirit of collective responsibility that powered their twin titles in 2012 and 2016, England know there'll be no room for lapses if their mini-resurgence is to be translated into vital Super Eight points.
There were certainly a few of those on show in their timid display against Australia in Barbados, most particularly in a middle-order that found it impossible to cut loose once the powerplay fielding restrictions had been lifted. At times in their trudge to a deeply one-sided 36-run loss, it was like watching their formless performances at the 50-over World Cup in India, a campaign that Jos Buttler had tried to pretend never happened in some notably terse media engagements at the start of this trip.
The disjointed nature of England's build-up is a partial excuse - after two wash-outs on home soil against Pakistan and three matches against Scotland, Oman and Namibia that saw them bat for a total of 13.2 overs, time in the middle has been a rarity, especially with Buttler and Phil Salt in a solid vein of form at the top. But these big-match players should have visualised enough scenarios in their time to make light of such straitened circumstances. They were spared a soggy exit by that break in the clouds in Antigua. Now's the time to prove that they are worthy of the reprieve.
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