16 hours ago
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Team news
Liam Dawson returns to the England side for the first time since 2022. That’s a major victory for the Wisden podcast, not to mention Liam Dawson. Jamie Smith will open in the absence of Phil Salt, who is on paternity leave, and Will Jacks continues his ODL role at No7.
West Indies have a much stronger side than in the ODI series, with frightening depth in their batting – Andre Russell is at No9.
England Smith, Duckett, Buttler (wk), Brook (c), Banton, Bethell, Jacks, Dawson, Carse, Rashid, Potts.
West Indies Charles, Lewis, Hope (c/wk) Chase, Rutherford, Powell, Holder, Shepherd, Motie, A Joseph.
England win the toss and bat
“Looks like a good pitch and hopefully we can put a good score on the board,” says Harry Brook. The local lad Matthew Potts, who was omitted from the Test squad earlier in the week, will make his IT20 debut.
Big interview: Andre Russell
The man with the biggest muscles in cricket talks to Andre Russell.
“The one off Hardik Pandya at the Wankhede in the 2016 World Cup,” he says when asked to name his favourite six. “That one was just massive. Perfect swing. Right out of the middle.” There’s a moment of silence before Russell blows out his cheeks at the memory. “That one was crazy.” You can look it up and decide for yourself, watch the umpire Richard Kettleborough’s chuckle of astonishment as the ball soars into the top tier of Mumbai’s famous stadium and he signals the obvious. Yeah, that’s a six all right.
Preamble
BANG! KAPOW! MADON! THWACK! SOCK! OOOFF!
Those of a certain [proximity to the Grim Reaper age will know these words were all used during fights in the Batman series of the 1960s. (Except MADON!, but that’s another story.) A few of them will be needed tonight as well, and not only to describe the post-pub dialectics up and down the land.
There should be plenty of THWACK!ing at Chester-le-Street, where England play West Indies – the six-hitting kings of Twenty20 – in the first of a three-match series.
England won the ODI series fairly comfortably, but the addition of Rovman Powell, Johnson Charles, Romario Shepherd, Andre Russell and others makes this a much stronger West Indies team.
It should be competitive. It’ll definitely require capital letters and exclamation marks.
The match starts at 6.30pm.
