West Indies will now host Australia in 5-match T20I series and they start with opening T20I at St Lucia. It will Australia’s first international assignment after the gap of five months.
Match Timings: July 10, 5 AM IST
Team Preview
Australia will now start their preparation for the upcoming T20 World Cup and their first opponent will be the 2-time winner West Indies. It’s a hectic summer for West Indies and Pollard’s troops suffered a 3-2 loss to South Africa in their first assignment.
Australia will miss their key players as most of the players pulled out of the tour due to bubble impact and family reasons. Australia haven’t played competitive cricket from the last five months and they last played to New Zealand in 5-match series after the packed home summer against India. Finch will take this series as the warm-up for the T20 WC and later, they will play Bangladesh as well.
Australia lost three back-to-back series during the covid outbreak. They suffered series defeats against England (2-1), India (2-1), and New Zealand (3-2). Aussies have won only four matches out of 11 in last one year. They last won a T20I series in South Africa one year ago.
Meanwhile, West Indies were tested in their home summer and their struggle against the spin occurred when Shamsi conceded runs at the run rate of 4. Out of four times, they failed to chase a total in Granada. West Indies won the opening T20I in style but then, South Africa didn’t give them a chance. Spin’s role will be important. Lewis, Simmons and Pollard got half-century but consistency is still missing. The Bowling unit did a good job by restricting the opposition on a good total.
West Indies won only 4 matches out of last 10 complete games and lost two series during this period. Their only series win came against a lower-ranked side Sri Lanka. World Champions have to find momentum ahead of the tournament. An aggressive approach is not a great idea on every pitch. Sometimes you have to play a natural game. It should be a cracker game of T20 and the West Indies are favourites in first game.
Pitch Report
St Lucia’s surface is good for batting but it will test the batsmen due to its sluggish behavior. We might expect chasing sides to dominate the game because it’s the first game on this surface.
Squads
Australia
Aaron Finch (c), Ashton Agar, Wes Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey, Dan Christian, Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques, Mitchell Marsh, Ben McDermott, Riley Meredith, Josh Philippe, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye, Matthew Wade, Adam Zampa
West Indies
Kieron Pollard (c), Nicholas Pooran (vc), Fabian Allen, Dwayne Bravo, Sheldon Cottrell, Fidel Edwards, Andre Fletcher, Chris Gayle, Shimron Hetmyer, Jason Holder, Akeal Hosein, Evin Lewis, Obed McCoy, Andre Russell, Lendl Simmons, Kevin Sinclair, Oshane Thomas, Hayden Walsh Jr
Key Players
Australia
Adam Zampa
Will be handy on this spin surface
Aaron Finch
Having a good form with the bat
West Indies
Evin Lewis
A hard-hitting player in the opening slot, looked good in the SA series
Dwayne Bravo
Looked wonderful with the bowl in last series and his impact will be crucial
