Australia and West Indies opened their World Cup 2019 campaigns in similar fashion registering seven-wicket victories over their respective adversaries, and will hope to take the summit spot when the sides go head to head at Trent Bridge in Nottingham on Thursday.
Often known as the T20 specialists, West Indies, as of now, are at the summit of points table because of better net run rate than their opponents. The two teams, who have won seven out of the 11 World Cups so far between them, meet at Trent Bridge after having tasted success in their opening games
Australia’s coach Justin Langer was all praise for the West Indies’ “Calypso cricket”, saying that they were his ideals when he was growing up, as he prepared Australia to confront the present set of quick bowlers of the Caribbean.
Langer said that the present world champions would need to modify their outlook to take on the West Indies pacers and other seam bowlers at the competition in England and Wales.
West Indies had devastated the Pakistan batting line-up with a blast of short-pitch deliveries, bowling them out for just 105 runs in their opening match of World Cup 2019.
While Oshane Thomas picked up 4/27, skipper Jason Holder and Andre Russell shared five wickets between them for the Windies to secure a seven-wicket victory over Pakistan.
Australia is expected to be careful about the West Indian big hitters and it would truly require some exertion from the Aussie pacers to control a batting line up consisting of the likes of Chris Gayle, Russell and Carlos Braithwaite.
Squads:
Australia: Aaron Finch (capt), Usman Khawaja, David Warner, Steve Smith, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Kane Richardson, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Jason Behrendorff, Nathan Lyon, Adam Zampa.
West Indies: Jason Holder (capt), Andre Russell, Ashley Nurse, Carlos Brathwaite, Chris Gayle, Darren Bravo, Evin Lewis, Fabian Allen, Kemar Roach, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Oshane Thomas, Shai Hope, Shannon Gabriel, Sheldon Cottrell, Shimron Hetmyer.
Match begins at 3:00 PM (IST) on Thursday, June 6.