West Indies vs England Prediction: Salt has all the right ingredients

It’s the first match of the T20I Series at Bridgetown on Saturday evening at 20:00 with live broadcast on TNT Sports.

Jamie Pacheco returned a good profit in the ODI Series just finished and has selections on the England top bat and top bowler markets at 16/5 and 18/5 respectively.

Cricket Odds

Team News

West Indies

The Windies will be feeling much better about life in white-ball cricket than they did a week or so ago after a deserved 2-1 win in the ODI series, which finished on Wednesday with them easily chasing 264 with a massive 42 balls to spare in the decider.

Brendon King and Keacy Carty both got centuries to see us paid out at 11/10 on the Windies win but Shai Hope’s late arrival at the crease when all the hard work had been done meant he finished on just 5 not out when we needed him to get to 50, resulting in us only showing a small profit on the day. But we returned a strong profit across the Series thanks to that 6/1 winner on Liam Livingstone for England top bat in game one.

It wasn’t all good, though. Bizarrely, star fast bowler Alzarri Joseph twice left the field without permission, firstly because he didn’t like skipper Hope’s field placements for him when he was bowling and then again when there were two mis fields off his bowing later on in the innings.

Coach and all-round good guy Darren Sammy called his behaviour unacceptable, and the result is that after a public apology from the player, he’s still been banned for two matches, which sets an important precedent but also deprives the Windies of one of their best players.

Unhelpfully, the Windies don’t seem to have named a T20I squad for the Series, somewhat typical of their sometimes-chaotic approach to international cricket. That means that it will mostly be the ODI boys featuring again, though regular skipper Rovman Powell is likely to lead, and Sammy has suggested that the likes of Nicolas Pooran and Akeal Hosein, gun players in this format, could feature.

Andre Russell? Who knows?

Possible XI: King, Lewis, Pooran/Rutherford, Carty, Powell, Hetmyer, Chase/Hosein, Shepherd, Motie, Forde, Shamar Joseph.

England

Liam Livingstone had a good ODI series with both bat and ball, Phil Salt got back-to-back fifties after a poor spell in the summer, Jofra Archer looked fitter than usual, and Jacob Bethell showed he can be a really important player for England in the future. But that’s probably as far as the positives go.

But for what it’s worth, I think some of the criticism regarding England’s defeat was a bit over-the-top. They were missing 4-5 players who would normally have played, new white-ball coach Brendon McCullum (already the Test coach, of course) was absent from the Tour and had the toss gone their way on Wednesday they would probably have won; we’ll never know.

They may find an extra gear in this Series though, seeing as they’ve generally been better in T20Is than in ODIs over the past few years.

England’s squad is almost the same here as it was for the ODI Series. With one notable exception: skipper Jos Buttler is in it and expected to play on Saturday but won’t keep wicket, with Salt keeping the job. It possible that we’ll see Buttler just focusing on his batting and captaincy going forward and that he won’t take the gloves again.

With two full days of rest and this being a shorter format, we may just see Archer play a fourth game in a row, a rarity indeed.

Possible XI: Salt, Buttler, Cox, Jacks, Livingstone, Bethell, Curran, Overton, Archer, Rashid, Topley.

Pitch and Conditions

We’re at Bridgetown again, the venue for that Third ODI.

There’s been plenty of T20I cricket played here over the years, a total of 31 completed matches, including eight at this year’s T20 World Cup, the first of which was a tie between Namibia and Oman that the former went on to win in a Super Over.

In the last four games here in that World Cup, India managed 181 against Afghanistan, which they easily defended, USA scored just 121 against the Windies, which was easily chased, England chased the USA’s 115 with minimum of fuss and India just about defended 176 against South Africa. So, you’d think a good batting side should be able to get to 170 but it’s hard to say whether batting first or chasing is the way to go.

Given all three of the ODIs were won by the side batting second and you’d think both captains will be viewing that as the better option.

West Indies vs England Odds

*Please click on the link above to be taken to the main West Indies vs England page on betfred.com (or app) for all the live betting prices on this match.

The hosts are 20/21, implied probability of 51.2%, with England 4/5, implied probability of 55%, so that’s pretty much as close as the odds can be for a T20 match.

If we knew that Pooran and Hosein were definitely playing, we’d be very interested in the hosts’ price, as those are two huge additions to an already very competent side who will be feeling confident and relaxed after that ODI Series win. The absence of Joseph is noted but he can blow hot and cold and may even have been rested for this one anyway, so maybe isn’t that big a loss.

So, the Windies would be the choice if we had to play this market but of course, we don’t. Best to ‘get some sighters’ in the first game and reassess when the second one comes around

1pt Phil Salt to be England Top Batsman @ 16/5

Quick explanation: given we don’t know whether the likes of Hosein, Pooran or other players might join up with the squad and featuring in this one, we don’t want to be playing the Windies Top Bat/Bowler markets as we don’t know what we’re dealing with there.

At the time of writing those two aren’t listed in the Betfred markets (suggesting they won’t play) but then again, other bookmakers have listed them. We don’t care for the uncertainty and again, will have a clearer picture next time. So, England-related markets it is.

And we like Phil Salt at 18/5 here. Had he not hit 59 and 74 in the last two matches and he may have been in danger of missing out here after a lean run, but when he’s got some runs under his belt and is feeling confident, he’s an extremely dangerous player.

We know he’ll open, one of the biggest positives for a T20 top bat bet, and it’s worth remembering this is the venue where he hit that patient but important 74 on Wednesday.

Most important of all though is his record against this opposition in the shortest format: it’s excellent. In his last four knocks against them he scored 109, 119 not out, 38 and 87 not out, top-scoring in all four! Given he obviously loves batting against this lot in T20Is and we have to take the 16/5 he comes good here.

1pt Adil Rashid to be Top England Bowler @ 18/5

In this one, we’re going with the tried and trusted veteran, England’s top bowler ever in this format. Adil Rashid had a slightly quiet time of it in the ODI Series with one wicket in the first match, two in the second and none in the third but he’s probably slightly more effective in this format anyway.

We know he’ll bowl his four overs, that he knows these conditions well and that his style of bowling is well-suited to taking wickets because he targets the stumps so much; so the 18/5 is a perfectly good price.

Once again, Livingstone looks big at 8/1, but it will be interesting to see whether he bowls as much with Buttler in charge as he did when he was leading himself.

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket and European Football 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.