England vs. West Indies: Will England take its revenge against the Windies?

Following the four days of warm-up matches, the first Test Match between England and West Indies for the Richards-Botham Trophy begins on March 8. The match will take place at the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Ground, Antigua.

The previous IT20 series that concluded a month ago wasn’t fun for England, who was defeated by the West Indies by 2-3. With revenge on its mind, England, captained by Joe Roots, is back with a new red-ball side with hopes to restore the pride of England Cricket.

The Australia series was nothing short of a nightmare for England. But, it seems that the team has made various changes ahead of the Test series. There are fresh faces on the team and a new interim head coach in the form of Paul Collingwood.

“We know what when wrong, we’ve analyzed what we did wrong, and we’re looking to move forwards now. I think you learn a lot in general from losing, actually, and it gives you a chance to bounce back strongly. I think we will during this series,” said Crawley.

The warm-up matches proved to be quite one-sided, with England accumulating 466 runs at the loss of six wickets in their first innings. The star of the match was Jonny Bairstow, who managed to finish the match unbeaten with 106 runs. Dan Lawrence was a second close at 83 runs.

In the warm-up match, Jonny Bairstow’s unbeaten century against the West Indies shows that the player is in his best form. Back in the game with the Ashes, though England performed poorly, Bairstow had managed to score the team’s only century before being benched due to a fractured thumb.

With his injury now healed and the same powerful and stable batting performance, Jonny Bairstow is likely to be a headache for the Windies.

• Joe Root
• Jonny Bairstow
• Ben Stokes
• Ollie Robinson

West Indies has a lot of wins to its name. Following the success with the T20 series, along with the memories of the Wisden Trophy of 2019 still fresh in its mind, the morale of the Windies is likely soaring.

The team will be introducing a mix of young and seasoned players for the series. 25-year old Anderson Phillip will be making his Test debut following a dazzling performance in the West Indies Championship.

“I expect us to be very competitive against England. This should be a very exciting series, with a lot of players who are out to make their mark.” said the lead selector Desmond Haynes.

• Kraigg Brathwaite
• Kyle Mayers
• Kemar Roach
• Jason Holder

While England may seem to be going through a rough patch, their strong batting and bowling lineup for the test series, along with their excellent performance in the warm-up matches, goes to show that they might be breaking the losing curse on March 8!