England have secured the series win against West Indies, although it did not come as easy in the second ODI. The visitors put in a good performance with the bat, bouncing back from the thumping loss in the first game.
They got off to the perfect start with the ball and should have won, but sometimes you can’t do much against a superlative knock from Joe Root. There’s still plenty to play for in the final game.
Why England can win
England bat extremely deep - they have Will Jacks at seven. Brydon Carse, Adil Rashid and Matthew Potts all have first-class hundreds too. That makes them a strong proposition, especially at home. Despite losing three of the top five to ducks, England were able to chase down 309.
A lot of that was down to Joe Root, who hit his highest 50-over score of 166*. He showed the importance of having someone with experience in pacing ODI innings. He will no doubt be a key part of the 2027 World Cup team.
The Jamie Smith experiment hasn’t taken full hold yet, with scores of 37 and 0 at the top of the order. He may struggle when there is a bit of early movement, so England would love some runs from him to vindicate the move up.
Saqib Mahmood was the pick of bowlers, with the part-time spinners Jacob Bethell and Will Jacks going for a combined 91 runs from their ten overs. It will be risky to use both on good batting decks against better opposition.
Why West Indies can win
The West Indian top-order are scoring runs at relative consistency. Keacy Carty is the obvious stand-out, but Shai Hope is in good nick too. Brandon King has a few good scores in recent ODI innings. There might be an over-reliance on them at the moment, but they have shown the knack to make it big.
Outside of them, it’s a bit experimental. Jewel Andrew is seen as the next big-thing, but he is still raw. He batted at five in the first ODI, out for 8, and then sent up the order in the next game. He got out for a duck.
Justin Greaves does not have a good run of scores to his name, while Shimron Hetmyer’s ODI contributions are a thing of the past. They really need the rest of the batting order to start contributing.
Alzarri Joseph was the star bowler with 4-31. Matthew Forde is an exciting if raw product, and has gone for 0-88 and 1-76 in two ODIs so far. Like England, WI too are getting too many overs out of part-timers. Greaves was tidy if ineffective. The most concerning is Gudakesh Motie - he has been wicketless in his last four ODIs and in fact has taken just three wickets across his last 75 overs. They might need to look elsewhere for penetration with the ball.
Venue and conditions
The last ODI held at the Kennington Oval saw Ben Stokes’ rampaging knock of 182 runs off 124 balls, so it’ll be interesting to see the nature of the pitch.
Early season County games have seen some big scores here, so it might be a good deck to bat on.
It has been a warm spring and early summer, though Tuesday looks to be cloudy.
Player stats
• Joe Root scored 50+ in six of 12 ODI innings at The Oval.
• Jos Buttler has a top score of just 43* from his nine at The Oval.
• Adil Rashid has taken just six wickets from 68 ODI overs at The Oval at an average of 59.50.
• Saqib Mahmood has bowled 2.3 overs to Shai Hope in this series for 2-12.
• Keacy Carty is in a rich vein of form: he has scored four hundreds in his last 9 ODI innings, with another score of 95. He had no hundreds prior to this.
• Shimron Hetmyer has batted in just 12 ODI innings since 2020, scoring 127 runs at an average of 10.58 and strike-rate of 90.07.
Written by Rahul Warrier (X: @rahulw_)