England vs West Indies Match Prediction: The Sportsrush present before you Match Prediction of 2019 World Cup Match 19 between ENG and WI.
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After the bitter disappointment of three abandoned matches in the space of 4 days from the land of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, we shift our attention to Friday. Back at the Rose Bowl, where West Indies will face hosts England in a high-voltage clash.
Although the chances of us getting a result from this match are not the highest either given the heavy grey cloud cover currently looming over the stadium, it’s a match which has all the ingredients to be a humdinger. Both the sides have been immaculate till now this edition of the World Cup, one being in complete control owing to its sensational batting order while the bowlers of West Indies have given opposition batsmen a tedious time.
Ahead of the today’s pivotal match, England head into the contest sitting on fourth place with 4 points. They last defeated Bangladesh comprehensively by 106 runs, a win that did a huge justice to their net run-rate.
On the other hand, West Indies were unlucky to see their encounter against South Africa be abandoned midway after widespread rainfall kept lashing the ground. With the one win, one match without a result and the one defeat, they are in sixth place, a position which doesn’t do justice to just how good they have been.
England vs West Indies – What numbers suggest?
A total of 101 ODIs have been contested between these two countries till now with England winning 51 of them. West Indies are a close second though with 44 wins while we’ve had the 6 matches ending without a result.
In England, the two countries have squared off 18 times with England coming out on top 18 times while West Indies have half the number of those wins. At the Rose Bowl, Southampton, the two countries have faced off against each two times with England winning both the encounters.
At the World Cup, the narrative doesn’t change England have defeated West Indies five times out of six with the lone win for the West Indies coming way back in the final of the 1979 edition of the tournament.
England vs West Indies – Key Battles
Ben Stokes vs Andre Russell
We are going to be featuring the two all-rounders of both the sides in our first key battle. A force with both the bat and ball, the two bring forward to the table an expansive skill set and the ability to deliver incisive performances.
Be it Andre Russell bowling to Ben Stokes or Ben Stokes bowling to Andre Russell, the importance of both these clashes are of colossal importance. Currently, it’s been Russell who has far outweighed Stokes with the ball, working up a hefty pace and extracting ample swing from the surface to pick up wickets at regular intervals.
Overall, both these players have liked stepping up their performances when the identity of the opposition is such. In the 13 matches against WI, Stokes has 10 wickets paired with the 332 runs while Russell in his 2 matches against England has managed to score 56 runs with the 4 wickets.
Adil Rashid vs Shimron Hetmyer
On a surface where all the talk is about the pacers, the spinner might just end up being indispensable to either side. And in Adil Rashid, England see a bowler who they consider vital to their sojourn this World Cup.
Unfortunately for them though, Rashid has refused to live up to the hefty standards accorded to them. His brand of bowling has been abject at best, getting hardly any purchase from the surface or hitting the right spots on the pitch. However, against middle-order batsman Shimron Hetmyer, he finally has a batsman who he will love bowling to.
As Hetmyer showed in the IPL recently and over the past couple of years, he’s way too unstable and unsure against the slower variety. If given flight, he can easily be enticed into going or a false shot and hole out the ball to a fielder on the boundary.
What Rashid needs to do is get the ball to come into Hetmyer and allow him to go for the big shot, something that can easily induce a miscued shot.
England vs West Indies – What numbers suggest?
The narrative for the 19th match from the bedlam of the ICC ODI World Cup 2019 is the West Indian pace battery against England’s formidable batting heavy line-up. West Indies in particular have impressed us spectacularly, making us sit up and take notice to the way they’ve obliterated sides.
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Billed to be a bowling unit way too guilt of bowling the wide line and lengths and spraying the ball in all the hitting zones, the work the West Indian quartet has done to tune their skill set makes for a captivating viewing.
And the ball which grows and stings into them near the helmet region is the one delivery England hate facing. Pakistan showed that in their recently concluded ODI series with Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler all palpable of throwing their wicket away when coming against that trajectory.
For all that the West Indian bowlers have done right though, they know there is not the smallest bit of margin that they can give to England’s batsmen who thrive on anything in their channel. The hosts are the only side to have scored in excess of 300 every time they’ve stepped out to play and once they settle in, the Rose Bowl wicket will accord them the opportunity of playing their shots.
At the end of the day, England’s batting might should see them pull through this one. The depth they come packed with in their batting line-up is too hard to ignore and we see it being the reason for their third win of the tournament.
