West Indies conclude their tour of England on Tuesday evening when they head to Southampton for their last chance to pick up a win before they leave the shores when the two sides meet in the third and final T20 contest.
England dominated the ODIs and it has been a similar case in the T20 matches too, so much so that they have won the series already and will be eyeing up six white ball wins from six over the last couple of weeks. West Indies will want to leave with their pride intact.
England
There will have been plenty of people out there who would have thought that England might have their work cut out to come out on top in this series. They were up against an opponent with a big reputation and were embarking on the beginning of a new era, so it would have been understandable if they had needed this series to settle down and formulate a route to success. They have thrown that script out of the window and dominated proceedings so far.
I always say that I like a side who can win matches when defending scores and when chasing them down too and so England have that box ticked. They won the opening game when defending a solid score and they chased down a good score in the second game of the series. There will naturally be improvement the longer this setup is in place and as the matches gain in importance, but England will be delighted with their efforts so far and will want to complete the ODI and T20 clean sweep here.
West Indies
There is no doubt that West Indies will be disappointed with how this tour has gone and even a consolation win here probably wouldn’t change that in any way. The big thing for West Indies is they can’t really argue that they have deserved anything from the series. Apart from having England five down miles away from the target in the second ODI, the Caribbean men have been comprehensively outplayed and soundly beaten.
They do have T20 matches to come in Ireland later in the week so they shouldn’t just sack the remainder of this tour off completely and a win here will at least offer up some sort of confidence to take back to Dublin with them. If they are to pick up that win here then they simply have to bowl much better than they have done in the series so far. The batting is starting to come to the boil, although there is room for improvement there too, but with the ball they have been a long way short.
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Team News
England are yet to play Saqib Mahmood in this series while Rehan Ahmed hasn’t featured either. Both could be given a chance with the series already won in which case the likes of Brydon Carse and Will Jacks could have the game off.
Roston Chase and Andre Russell aren’t going onto the Ireland leg of the T20 tour so it remains to be seen whether they feature in this match with the series won. If they don’t then Shimron Hetmyer could get a run out.
Betting
I’ve expected a high scoring series so far and while that happened to be the case in the last match at Bristol, dimensions here in Southampton are much bigger than they are there and I’m not convinced that the runs are going to flow as much as I’ve expected so far. Even then, in Bristol it needed the penultimate over of the first innings to go for 31 to get the score over 190 and those sorts of overs don’t come along every game and certainly not on a ground this big.
England spinners clearly struggled with the dimensions of Bristol but that isn’t going to be the case here in Southampton. This is the home ground of Liam Dawson while Adil Rashid and Jacob Bethell should both enjoy the much bigger boundaries and it isn’t a ground where West Indies, or England for that matter, can just bash everything out of the park. The run line for this one is 372.5 so we need a first innings of at least 185 for that to be covered. England only made 186 in the first game and West Indies wouldn’t have made 180 but for that crazy over. That run line feels a little high, especially now the bowlers know how to get on top of the batters so I’ll play the under.
Tips
Back Under 372.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with Betway
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