Published: Apr 02, 2016, 11:51 AM (IST)
Edited: Apr 03, 2016, 05:50 PM (IST)
Having slayed the giants of ICC T20 World Cup 2016 — India and New Zealand — in their respective semi-finals, West Indies and England clash in the final of the tournament at the iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Sunday night. For many in the cricket fraternity, neither West Indies nor England were among the favourites when the tournament began. But both teams surprised with their distinct brands of cricket, setting themselves perfectly to have a crack at the World T20 trophy for the second time in their history. It will be truly hard to pick a favourite for this clash, as both West Indies and England can mercilessly scourge the best of the oppositions on their day. Full Cricket Score: England vs West Indies, T20 World Cup 2016, Final at Kolkata
West Indies and England were the two teams who had qualified for the semi-final round from Group 1, with Darren Sammy’s men occupying the top spot in the T20 World Cup 2016 points table and Eoin Morgan’s team at the second.
And shockingly, Group 2, which was the toughest and being described as the ‘group of death’ since it had India, New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, failed to provide even a single team good enough to make it to the final.
While New Zealand erred with their plans and execution in the first semi-final against England, India made errors equivalent to school cricket teams in their high-scoring semi-final at Mumbai while defending a formidable 193.
With their power-hitting ability, West Indies have proved that they can shock even the best and England should not expect any mercy from the Caribbean team, which says it has ’15 match-winners’ in their side.
For England, winning this edition of T20 World Cup will be like putting the final nail in the coffin of the immense embarrassment that has followed them since their first-round exit in the 50-over World Cup last year. England have proved time and again that they are no more frail or outdated; instead, they can be better than the best. The very idea of ‘New England’ seems to have done wonders for them.
Just like the India-West Indies semi-final, the match in Kolkata too will have two batsmen in focus. England’s Jason Roy and West Indies’ Chris Gayle are identical in more than one way, as they both can demolish the best of the bowling attacks without any prior warning. England have already seen how much damage Gayle alone can cause, when their 183-run target was blown away by a 47-ball 100 by the left-handed maverick earlier in this tournament. On the other hand, Roy’s splendid performance propelled England in the final single-handedly against a rampant New Zealand.
However, neither of the T20 World Cup 2016 finalists have been totally convincing. If West Indies are plagued with poor fielders, England can still succumb to spin if the pressure is exerted the right way. West Indies rely heavily on power-hitting, as do most of the England batsmen. The contest will definitely become even more interesting if either team’s bowlers tighten screws on their opposition, suffocate run-scoring and take wickets in quick succession.
The mood in both camps, nevertheless, seems to be terrific. Sammy has already yelled it out to his men that the T20 World Cup 2016 is theirs with an emphatic ‘let’s go and take it’, up against them is a team which does not fear anything. England has reaped rich benefits by changing their mentality, their approach from a frail unit to a brave one, and they will be fired up completely for World T20 2016 final.
Both West Indies and England bat very, very deep. But their bowling resources and ideas are quite limited. Sammy looked clueless to control the Indians when they were on charge in the semi-final, and Morgan was fortunate to have Ben Stokes towards the end of the innings to limit the Kiwis to a modest total.
While England won the T20 World Cup 2010 in the Caribbean, West Indies won their first World T20 title in 2012, defeating Sri Lanka in their stronghold of Colombo. This time, they have already knocked out red-hot favourites India to make it to the final, against a team which has so far played only one crunch game. While their preparations will be up to the mark, it will only work in their favour if West Indies and England capitalise on smallest of chances. They cannot forget that the margin of mistakes in T20 cricket is very, very small, and cannot afford any.
Squads:
West Indies: Johnson Charles, Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels, Lendl Simmons, Andre Russell, Denesh Ramdin (wk), Dwayne Bravo, Darren Sammy(c), Carlos Brathwaite, Samuel Badree, Sulieman Benn, Ashley Nurse, Jerome Taylor, Evin Lewis, Jason Holder
England : Jason Roy, Alex Hales, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan(c), Jos Buttler (wk), Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, Chris Jordan, David Willey, Adil Rashid, Liam Plunkett, James Vince, Sam Billings, Liam Dawson, Reece Topley
TIME: 19:00 IST | 1:30 PM GMT
(Devarchit Varma is senior writer with CricketCountry. He can be followed on Twitter @Devarchit)
