After three terribly one-sided ODI matches, England and West Indies turn their attention to the shortest form of the game for three T20 games which have much more significance given that the World Cup is around eight months away.
Both these sides will head to India and Sri Lanka among the teams expected to go well and even get their hands on the World Cup next year and these three matches should give us an indication of where they are at, beginning with the opener in Durham on Friday.
England
This will be the first time that England will have competed in the 20 over format with Harry Brook as captain. The last time we saw them playing 20 over cricket was in India back in January where they were given a good going over in four of the five matches they played there. England will undoubtedly be much better in their own conditions but they would have had something to prove even if they weren’t under a new captain, but the new era brings more scrutiny on them here.
England would love to pick up where they left off in the ODIs. In those matches they were completely dominant with the bat and had enough about them with the ball to always stay on the right side of being the likely winners. They will come up against a much stronger challenge here but if they can play the sort of cricket they played in those ODIs then there is no reason why they can’t be much more competitive here than they were in India earlier in the year.
West Indies
There is no getting away from the fact that West Indies were a complete and utter disappointment in the ODI matches. With the exception of a couple of blocks of 15-20 overs with the bat in the second and third games they weren’t competitive at all and they will know they need a much stronger showing here if they are going to get anything out of this series. This is the format they are currently best suited to though which will offer some confidence and belief that they can go better than they have in the last week.
Incredibly for a country who are addicted to the 20 over format, these will be the first T20 internationals that West Indies have played in 2025. They have a big reputation in this format of the game because their batters can attack with a lot more freedom only needing to see 20 overs out rather than 50 and the weak links in their bowling isn’t exposed as much because they are only bowling four overs rather than 10. When it comes together West Indies are very good in this format but when it doesn’t they can look abject too. They’ll be hoping for much more of the former here.
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Team News
England announced on the eve of the opening match that Phil Salt will miss the series as he is on paternity leave. Jamie Smith replaced him in the squad but Tom Banton is expected to open. Liam Dawson is expected to come into the side too.
West Indies have some big guns available to them for this series which includes Rovman Powell, Andre Russell, Jason Holder and Romario Shepherd but Nicholas Pooran asked to skip the tour after his IPL exertions.
Betting
We have just seen three ODI matches where the bat dominated the ball between these two sides and I don’t see any reason to expect any different here when you consider the firepower that both teams are bringing into their batting units without really strengthening their bowling attacks. There is the question over how to play that sort of thinking especially with Durham having a huge outfield but they tend to bring the boundary in a little for T20s and the international wicket always plays extremely true for batting.
Runs have been piled up in the Championship on this ground this season and these two sides just look made to score big so I’m not convinced that the 14.5 sixes line on this one is in any way high enough. West Indies were able to hit sixes in the ODIs but they have Rovman Powell, Andre Russell and Romario Shepherd included to help them do that here. England will add clean hitters like Tom Banton and possibly Rehan Ahmed into their side so there is no shortage of firepower and that makes me think we’ll see more than 14.5 sixes from two batting units who are much stronger than the bowling ones they will face.
Tips
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