The first of five T20 internationals between West Indies and Australia takes place in St Lucia on Friday and we take a look at the squads, recent form and the all important betting
All 5 of the matches in this series will be staged at the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium, Gros Islet, St Lucia over the course of 8 days and we begin with a look at the squads.
West Indies named the following squad for the recently concluded series against South Africa and Australia's tour.
West Indies: Kieron Pollard (C), Nicholas Pooran (VC), Fabian Allen, Dwayne Bravo, Sheldon Cottrell, Fidel Edwards, Andre Fletcher, Chris Gayle, Shimron Hetmyer, Jason Holder, Akeal Hosein, Evin Lewis, Obed McCoy, Andre Russell, Lendl Simmons, Kevin Sinclair, Oshane Thomas, Hayden Walsh Jr
Familiar names such as David Warner, Pat Cummins, Glenn Maxwell, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, Marcus Stoinis and the injured Steve Smith are missing and Australia will select from the following squad.
Australia: Aaron Finch (C), Ashton Agar, Wes Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey, Dan Christian, Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques, Mitchell Marsh, Riley Meredith, Ben McDermott, Josh Philippe, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye, Matthew Wade, Adam Zampa
Recent Form
West Indies
Despite starting as favourites and winning the opening match by 8 wickets West Indies have just lost a home series against South Africa 3-2. The series went to the wire and the Proteas won the decider last weekend by 25 runs.
West Indies hosted Sri Lanka in March and they won a 3 match series 2-1. In November 2020 they lost 2-0 in New Zealand and they won 2-0 in Sri Lanka a year ago.
Australia
Australia were in New Zealand for a 5 match series in February / March this year and they were beaten 3-2. They lost the first 2 matches of that series but fought back to square things up before going down in the decider by 7 wickets.
Recent Head to Head
Overall the teams have met 11 times with West Indies winning 6 to Australia's 5.
Two of those matches were staged at this venue with Australia winning a WT20 group match by 6 wickets in 2010 and on tour in 2012 Australia won by 8 wickets.
The teams haven't met in this format since the 2014 World T20 in Dhaka when West Indies won by 6 wickets.
The Venue: Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium, Gros Islet
West Indies have played 4 T20's at this venue, winning 1 and losing 3.
The most recent match came against England in March 2019 and England chased down WI's bat first total of 160/8 (Pooran 58) with 7 balls remaining for a 4 wicket victory.
Weather Forecast: Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium, Gros Islet, St Lucia
The Betting
West Indies are currently trading at around 21/20 to win the first T20 and Australia can be backed at around 15/20
West Indies are 0.42/1 to hit the most sixes and it's 9/10 each of two to post the highest first 6 overs total
Evin Lewis is 3/1 favourite to top score for West Indies with Lendl Simmons at 7/2. Aussie skipper Aaron Finch is 5/2 favourite top be top bat for the visitors.
Note all prices are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
The Verdict
I'm open minded about the match result and will focus on the WI top bat and ball markets as that is where the most recent form lies.
In the series against the Proteas Evin Lewis averaged 35.60 runs from 5 knocks although 71 of those came in the first match of the series. Lendl Simmons was next best with an average of 24 from 3 innings and no other Windies batsmen averaged more than 18.
That makes the WI top bat market tricky although Lewis probably deserves the vote to outscore his team mates.
With the ball, Dwayne Bravo (10 wickets) and Obed McCoy (9 wickets) were by far the most successful of the WI bowlers against the Proteas and slight preference is for McCoy.
Bets: Top WI bat Evin Lewis at 3/1
Top WI bowler Obed McCoy at 3/1
Note all prices are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
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