The ODI series between West Indies and England has moved from Antigua to Barbados for the third and final game and one which will be a decider of the spoils after both sides claimed comfortable wins in the opening two matches.
West Indies drew first blood in the series but ran into a Liam Livingstone onslaught in the second game and that all means that we have a winner takes all contest at the Kensington Oval to decide the series on Wednesday.
West Indies
After a really productive showing in the opening game of the series, West Indies will be disappointed that they didn’t wrap it up before they left Antigua. It looked like they had put up a more than competitive score in the second ODI even though they got off to a much slower start than they would have wanted. Having posted more than 300 and dominated the first game with the ball hopes were high that they had done enough.
That wasn’t the case though. In the end they were beaten a little too soundly for their liking but they can take comfort from the fact that it was largely one innings which got the better of them and if they can manage the middle overs a little better here in Barbados this is still a series that they can win, especially if they can get off to a quicker start with the bat in hand or just put up a few more runs. You would imagine West Indies will have their best bowling unit out here which will help.
England
You have to give England a lot of credit for getting back into a series it looked like they were going to be out of their depth in after the opening game. They weren’t perfect in that second match and had to rely on an insanely good innings from their captain Liam Livingstone to get them over the line but they should have taken a lot of confidence from that win and if a couple more players can come to the party with the bat then there is no reason why they can’t snatch a series win.
The one concern I would have with that is that they looked a batter light in the second game and if things don’t go to plan at the top of the order they could quickly run out of batting resources. The other concern is that with the exception of a decent new ball spell by John Turner in the second game, the England bowlers haven’t really looked like they have had the edge on the West Indies batters. That has to change if England are going to win the series.
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Team News
It was a bit of a surprise that Alzarri Joseph missed the second match of the series. His namesake Shamar Joseph couldn’t really get into the game so that switch would be an obvious one. You would expect West Indies to be unchanged aside from that.
It will be interesting to see if England make any changes with the series on the line. They might choose to bring the stronger batting of Jamie Overton back into the side when you consider that they used nine bowlers in the previous game.
Betting
I always thought that I would be taking the performance of Liam Livingstone at some point in this series and I’m kind of annoyed that I didn’t get involved in it in the second game of the series but even though the line has moved up to 46.5 I think this is the time to play it. The initial reason why I wanted to be on this was because I suspected that the responsibility of captain would bring out the better side of him in terms of batting with some responsibility and we have seen that.
I waited for the first game to see if he would bowl himself and he is and he is clearly in decent touch with the bat. When he allows himself time to get in before throwing the bat at everything he is as dangerous a player as there is in the game right now, as we saw in that last match in Antigua. In that second ODI, Livingstone totalled 154 points and even in the opening game where England were well beat he scored 68 points. He has covered this total with the bat in both matches but he also has wickets in both matches so he has plenty of ammunition to cover this line for a third successive time.
Tips
Back L.Livingstone’s Performance – Over 46.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
