Key events
8th over: England 85-1 (Buttler 30, Jacks 5) Romario Shepherd replaces Joseph after the carnage of his last over, he bangs it in the middle of the pitch and goes very full to good effect – England can only work the ball for single, five of ‘em.
7th over: England 80-1 (Buttler 28, Jacks 2) Will Jacks is the new man in the middle. He’ll likely still be smarting from that central contract snub – the Surrey gun will want to make a statement in this series. He glides a length ball through point to get off the mark to his first ball. Buttler then does a carbon copy off the next ball. Close! Russell goes short and Jacks tries to run it away up the face of his bat but only connects with fresh air. Russell ends a tidy over with a dot. West Indies needed that, brakes applied to England’s runaway start.
WICKET! Salt c Hetmyer b Russell 40 (England 77-1)
Salt smears to leg but can’t clear Hetmyer on the fence who takes a well judged juggling catch.
6th over: England 77-0 (Salt 40, Buttler 27) England are on one here. Alzarri Joseph replaces Jason Holder for the final Powerplay over and is carved for 26!
Salt cracks him downtown for four and follows up with an incredible flat six over point! Buttler flicks off his hip for a couple and it is a FREE HIT as Joseph has overstepped. Buttler takes the freebie and launches it over long on for four. Gah! Joseph then gives away five wides. Yikes – that’s the most expensive over Alzarri Joseph has sent down in his entire career.
5th over: England 51-0 (Salt 29, Buttler 20) Ping! Andre Russell is summoned for a bowl and his first ball – clocking 84 MPH – is dispatched by Buttler for four down the ground. Some shot that. Scary.
A tale of two scoops* follows. West Indies go upstairs to review a missed/or was it? scoop from Buttler but the DRS shows a flat line. NOT OUT. SIX! Buttler gets the next one perfectly and ramps Russell away for a maximum. 50 up for England.
*Two scoops, not two soups…
4th over: England 41-0 (Salt 29, Buttler 10) Phil Salt is seeing it like a planet! Holder drops a quick ball in short only to see Salt dismiss it to the fence with disdain. His bat sounded like a sawn off shotgun in the process. A step away to leg sees Salt slash another four over the infield on the off-side. A single to each batter and a drive for two from Salt finish the over, England continue on their merry way and take a dozen off it.
3rd over: England 29-0 (Salt 18, Buttler 9) Hosein is angling the ball in at the stumps, Salt goes back and does well to get the bat down on it just in time. Shades of Indiana Jones and his hat with that one. Salt carves for two through point where a lumbering Andre Russell does the fielding. Shot! Buttler pounces on a full ball and smears it down the ground all along the baize for four!
2nd over: England 22-0 (Salt 15, Buttler 5) Jason Holder, impossibly tall with a vast chest as impressively wide as a Smeg fridge bustles in but struggles with his radar. A couple of leg side wides are gifted before he lands one straight that Buttler meets with a bunt back over his head (no mean feat against Holder) for four. Nine off the over in total.
1st over: England 13-0 (Salt 13, Buttler 0) Hosein skids the ball on at a decent lick. The wicket is butterscotch and pristine. CLOSE! Salt goes back to cut a full ball and gets a meaty outside edge that flies past Shai Hope at slip and away for four. Hope had no chance of getting a hand to that, it was travelling. Four! Salt sweeps powerfully in the gap behind square and follows up with a cut through point for another boundary. He nudges a single to keep strike too – England off to a flier!
Here come the players – Phil Salt and Jos Buttler doing some obligatory willow wielding accompanied by the odd lunge and knee flex. West Indies will start with the left-arm spin of Akeal Hosein – PLAY!
Hold onto your egg timers!
Tonight’s match will see the introduction of a clock trial, a procedural innovation which will now run in all white-ball internationals until April. Teams must be ready to bowl the first ball of each over within 60 seconds* of the completion of the last one – should they fail, after two free passes, the third and subsequent offences will each result in a five-run deduction from their score.
*Won’t anyone think of the poor OBO scribe and their poor, weary digits?!
Here’s Woakesy!
There’s always an emphasis on the result but, at the same time, you want to prepare for what’s ahead. So [the focus is] learnings as to conditions, and also performances sometimes rather than the end results. The perfect idea is you do all of that and get the result as well.”
Our man on the ground (not jealous at all as I type this from a dank South London) is Simon Burnton. He caught up with both Tymal Mills and Chris Woakes over the last day or so.
Here’s Tymal Mills on how he’s faring:
I had a really good summer,” he said. “Just playing games, stacking them up, training properly and not worrying too much about my body, that made a big difference and kept me in a really good rhythm. I was able to train properly, practice and work on things and then take them into games.
It’s building that rhythm, building that momentum. That can go against you if you’re not bowling particularly well, but I guess I was coupling bowling well with bowling often and just staying on top of things, getting in a good rhythm and a good routine. Just having confidence in my body that every time I go out there to play, I’m not holding back in any little way where I’m worried about getting an injury. There’s just little things that over a period of time help translate to good performances.”
Teams:
West Indies: 1 Brandon King, 2 Kyle Mayers, 3 Nicholas Pooran (wk), 4 Shai Hope, 5 Rovman Powell (c), 6 Shimron Hetmyer, 7 Andre Russell, 8 Romario Shepherd, 9 Jason Holder, 10 Akeal Hosein, 11 Alzarri Joseph
England: 1 Jos Buttler (c & wk), 2 Phil Salt, 3 Will Jacks, 4 Ben Duckett, 5 Harry Brook, 6 Liam Livingstone, 7 Sam Curran, 8 Chris Woakes 9 Rehan Ahmed, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Tymal Mills
A double dose of leg-spin wizardry as Rehan Ahmed and Adil Rashid play in the same side for England, Tymal Mills is also given his first cap in eighteen months.
West Indies win the toss and choose to bowl first
Windies captain Rovman Powell confirms Andre Russell will play and Jos Buttler admits to a polo shirted David Gower that he would have preferred to chase too. Full teams incoming!
Preamble
James Wallace
Hello, good evening and welcome to the OBO of the first T20I of the five match series between West Indies and (defending World Champions – no jokes please) England.
After a bruising few months at the hands of ODI cricket, England Captain Jos Buttler and Head Coach Matthew Mott will be hoping the (even) shorter format stuff can act as an arnica salve to their and tender flesh. With a T20I World Cup (C’mon now, I said no jokes) in the USA and Caribbean looming in 2025 England will be hoping they can capture some of the spirit that saw them lift the trophy in 2022.
The next five games give them an opportunity to hone their best side in the exact same conditions they’ll play the big one in next year. The opposition will prove a stern test too – West Indies coach (and T20I World Cup winning captain) Darren Sammy has called back plenty of heavy artillery for this series. Most notably, perhaps, is the summoning of T20 behemoth Andre Russell after a two year absence from international cricket, the Kolkata Knight Rider will also be joined by one or all of Jason Holder, Nicholas Pooran and Kyle Mayers. Gulp.
England have drafted in some of their T20 gunslingers too; Tymal Mills, Moeen Ali and Chris Woakes (I won’t tell you again…) and Jos Buttler will head back up to the top of the batting card. There’ll be plenty more to get stuck into once the series begins at 10pm GMT this evening. I’ll be back with news of the teams and the toss very shortly.
