England vs West Indies Prediction: Jayden gets Seales of approval for Top Bowler

After a thrashing of the Windies at Lord’s last week, it’s time for the Second Test on Thursday July 18 with an 11am start (live on Sky Sports Cricket) at Trent Bridge.

James Pacheco is focusing just on the Windies players as regards his tips, with picks on the first innings top bat and top bowler markets. Here goes with his England vs West Indies Second Test Predictions.

Cricket Odds

Team news

England

There’s no more James Anderson of course, though he didn’t really go out in huge style, taking ‘just’ four of the 20 wickets to fall for the Windies.

However, whereas 12-wicket man Gus Atkinson is the future, it’s hard to argue that 34-year old Mark Wood is. But he’s been drafted in as Anderson’s replacement here. A sign England are more concerned about winning as many Tests as they can this summer rather than just thinking about the bigger picture.

The rest of the team remains the same. So another chance for Shoaib Bashir to make a mark after a First Test where he didn’t bowl at all in either innings with the pacers doing all the work and was run out for 0 (albeit to some excellent fielding) in the one time he batted.

Chris Woakes can now be considered the leader of the attack.

Possible XI: Crawley, Duckett, Pope, Root, Brook, Stokes, Smith, Woakes, Atkinson, Bashir, Wood.

West Indies

Their deeply disappointing performance in the First Test was a reminder of what can happen when you don’t prepare adequately.

With the exception of a couple of players who had been playing County cricket, their only preparation was a warm-up match against a Select XI and it showed.

Most of the fast bowlers didn’t know what lines and lengths to bowl and the batters didn’t know whether to go forward or backwards to balls pitched on a length, a good sign they weren’t accustomed to conditions.

With Kemar Roach still injured, there’s no-one really with bat or ball who can come in and improve the team so it’s likely to be the same XI.

Possible XI: Brathwaite, Louis, McKenzie, Athanaze, Hodge, Holder, da Silva, Alzarri Joseph, Shamar Joseph, Motie, Seales.

England vs West Indies Odds

Pitch and conditions

Trent Bridge is one of the trickier wickets to call.

Firstly because there have only been two Tests here in the last five years and secondly because whether the sun is out or not seems to make more of a difference here than at other grounds. If it’s gloomy, it can be unplayable if the bowling is good enough. If it‘s sunny, batsmen can have lots of fun.

Proof of the former was a strong England batting line-up being all out against India in 2021 for just 183.

The forecast suggests it could be a bit gloomy on Thursday morning so you’d think both skippers would want to bowl. If it’s England doing so, it could be game over by Tea on the first day.

If that’s the case and England do bowl in swinging conditions, going under 200 runs for the Windies might prove to be a popular choice on the first innings runs market.

England vs West Indies Match Odds

England are 1/9 and that should come as no surprise after what happened at Lord’s.

It’s hard to see how the Windies can improve considerably to make us interested in one of the other two prices, which are 12/1 on the Windies and 11/1 on the draw. They’d need to bowl first, dismiss England for less than 250, better that themselves and then come out and do it all over again.  No, I don’t think so, either.

Your best bet may be if England do bat first, lose three or four early wickets in tricky conditions and look for about 1.5 in-running on the hosts, if it reaches that.

West Indies Top Batsman

Three Windies batsmen reached 20 batting first at Lord’s - Louis (27), Athanaze (23) and Hodge (24)- Louis just pipping the other two.

In the second innings some aggressive strokeplay by number nine Gudakesh Motie got him to 31 runs, to win at a big price.

But we noted that Athanaze got a start in the second innings too and of all the Windies batsmen on show was perhaps the only one who actually looked like he could score runs if he got going. At times he played some beautiful strokes and isn’t short on confidence.

And some attacking shots might well be enough to get to 40 or so and that might be enough to win this, if conditions are particularly tricky for batting.

At decent-looking odds given number four could be a good place to bat and his form in the First Test, he looks the pick.

West Indies Top Bowler

One of the few Windies players to emerge with any credit at Lord’s was Jayden Seales, who took 4-77.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise given he played six First Class matches for Sussex before this Series.

Twice he took five wickets in an innings over those six games, twice he took four, so clearly enjoys English conditions.

Not only was he their top wicket-taker at Lord’s but he was also the one who troubled the batsmen the most even when they weren’t getting out.

Jason Holder is very capable in these conditions too and it’s no coincidence he was the other player who had been playing County Cricket (for Worcestershire) before this Series; but we just about prefer Seales.

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket for us at Betfred Insights. You can check out his Cricket Betting Tips, along with those from the rest of the team, at our Cricket hub page...