West Indies get set to challenge England in T20 World Cup

by Mick the Ram

The opening group games of the 2024 T20 World Cup have concluded and the tournament quickly moves on to the Super 8’s stage, with an eagerly anticipated clash between West Indies and title holders England one of the first fixtures in the next phase.

The two nations will meet on 19 June at the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium in St Lucia, shortly after the other two teams in the second group – USA and South Africa – fight it out at North Sound, Antigua.

The West Indies are one of three teams, along with Australia and South Africa, who won all four of their group matches, whereas England only just squeezed through with a final-game narrow victory over low-ranking Namibia.

After the United States played co-hosts throughout the group matches, the competition switches solely to the Caribbean for the remainder of the World Cup.

The Super 8’s take place from 19 to 25 June, with two groups of four competing for places in the semi finals. Group 1 consists of India, Australia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh.

Every chance of progressing further

Many pundits will probably favour a semi-final line-up of Australia, India, England and South Africa, but it is worth remembering that the West Indies beat Jos Buttler‘s side 3-2 in a series at the end of last year.

The way Rovman Powell‘s team thumped a very dangerous Afghanistan side in their final group game – bearing in mind they were playing a side who had already knocked a highly talented New Zealand outfit out of the tournament – underlined that the West Indies are very much a team that can go on and claim the T20 crown.

Leading performers

In Akeal Hosein, they have a very fine bowler, who has performed outstandingly so far in the tournament. His nine wickets puts him equal second for leading wicket-taker, level with teammate Alzarri Joseph and four others, and behind only the Afghan’s Fazalhaq Farooqi, who has twelve.

Nicholas Pooran‘s explosive innings in the last match lifted him into second place in the leading run scorers, just 3 runs behind another Afghanistan player, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, who has struck an impressive 167 in his three tournament knocks so far.

Struggling for form

England on the other hand, have simply not got into any sort of rhythm. Admittedly the weather has hindered them to some extent, but their big reputation players have not found any form up to now, highlighted by the fact that no Englishman appears in the competition’s leading batting or bowling lists.

They are waiting on the fitness of all-rounder Liam Livingstone, who injured his side in their last fixture. The pitch in St Lucia is expected to be good for batting, so they could be tempted to bring in another specialist batter in Ben Duckett, should Livingstone fail to recover in time.

Super 8’s ramp up the excitement

There has already been some surprises with three seeded sides in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and New Zealand all failing to progress beyond the groups, beaten to those Super 8’s spots by USA, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, respectively.

In the Super 8’s, each side plays the three others in their pool just the once, with the top two at the end going on to reach the semi-finals, which will both take place on 26 June.

The winners of Group 1 will play the second-placed side in Group 2 and vice versa, with the final taking place on 29 June, in Barbados.