The second contest in the T20 World Cup on Wednesday is a mouth-watering one as two former champions collide when the West Indies battle it out with England in what should be a barnstormer of a match.
If ever there was a side suited to T20 cricket, a side who fear nobody and who shy away from nothing it is the West Indies but England are beginning to follow that reputation and could be the ones to take it over completely when this West Indies squad finishes at this level. Whichever way you look at it this has the potential to be an epic encounter.
West Indies captain Darren Sammy was a very happy man in his pre-match press conference and why on earth wouldn’t he be? He has insane amounts of power in his batting line up and he has plenty of competition in his bowling attack and you get the feeling they have enjoyed being in India’s shadow in the build up to this tournament but make no mistake they’ll be here to win.
With Lendl Simmons ruled out of the tournament through injury the team pretty much picks itself although there is one decision to make. That is whether to play one spinner or two. If it is one will it be Badree or Benn? The latter looks most likely given that he played in the warm up matches.
England were very timid in the aftermath of the Kevin Pietersen saga in limited overs cricket but a trip to rock bottom in the 50 over version of this tournament last year woke a few people up and they’ve gone full circle. They now play their cricket on the front foot in a fearless fashion and how good it is to watch.
The tournament makes its first stop off at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai for this match. The ground has only held one previous T20I, a match which England won against India thanks to a Michael Lumb half-century and runs from Alex Hales and Eoin Morgan.
This ground is the home ground for the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League and we see year on year in that event how good the wicket is for batting. I don’t envisage anything different in this match.
We also see here in the IPL how the ground is so hard to defend and with the power in both batting line ups whoever bowls second will have their work cut out to defend a score unless it is an insurmountable one.
With that in mind I can’t really get involved in the match from the beginning. In fairness were the first and second innings level the odds probably look about right so I’m not too worried about the match market.
I’m staggered we’re getting a 12.5 sixes line for this match though. There are some of the most powerful batsmen in the world game on show here. Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Johnson Charles, Andre Russell, Darren Sammy, Carlos Braithwaite, Jason Holder, Alex Hales, Jason Roy, Eoin Morgan, Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali and David Willey will all have the potential to have the bat in their hand in this match.
Regardless of the size of the ground, which for the record it isn’t the biggest, that is an insane amount of talent to have on our side when it comes to sixes. I just don’t see how this won’t be a high scoring game unless the wicket is terrible which I can’t see it being.
All three warm up matches here were fairly high scoring. New Zealand even made 226/4 here against Sri Lanka and there were a couple of 190+ scores so I fully expect a high scoring game here and plenty of sixes.
If the Windies bat first they could cover this total on their own but England give us enough back up to get stuck into this line at this price.
WON – Back Over 12.5 sixes for a 6/10 stake at 2.00 with Paddy Power
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