West Indies seek first series win over Sri Lanka in 23 years

Ian Wa­son

Sport Cor­re­spon­dent

Ian1wa­son60@gmail.com

West In­dies and Sri Lan­ka will re­new their Test ri­val­ry to­mor­row at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um, where lo­cal form may counter the over­all num­bers that favour the vis­i­tors.

At North Sound, the Windies have lost on­ly two Tests (both to In­dia) and have won five of 13 match­es there — a venue record that gives the hosts con­fi­dence head­ing in­to the se­ries open­er.

“We’re search­ing for that first win, but An­tigua has been a venue that has been re­al­ly, re­al­ly good to us,” Head Coach Daren Sam­my said on Sat­ur­day, “All our prepa­ra­tion, meet­ings and prac­tice have been tai­lored to how we’re go­ing to win against Sri Lan­ka.”

Yet across the full his­to­ry be­tween the sides, Sri Lan­ka holds the edge. Since their first Test meet­ing in 1993, Sri Lan­ka has won 10 of 23 Tests to the West In­dies’ four. Sri Lan­ka has al­so re­tained the Sobers-Tis­sera Tro­phy since 2005 af­ter a 2-0 vic­to­ry, and the West In­dies’ last se­ries tri­umph over Sri Lan­ka came in 2003.

De­spite those life­time fig­ures, Sri Lan­ka’s suc­cess has large­ly come in Asia; they have yet to se­cure a se­ries win in the Caribbean. Sam­my is bank­ing on home con­di­tions to lev­el the con­test.

“We’ve trained specif­i­cal­ly for the con­di­tions we ex­pect here in An­tigua and how to match the Sri Lankan skill set,” he said. “We’ve looked at the sur­face and have a fair idea of how it will play, so all our prepa­ra­tion has been tai­lored to­wards that.”

The An­tigua Test al­so marks the re­turn of fast bowler Alzarri Joseph to the West In­dies Test side af­ter a year out with a low­er-back in­jury. His come­back – along­side fel­low pac­er Shamar Joseph, who al­so missed Tests in In­dia and New Zealand – strength­ens a seam at­tack that was weak­ened late last sea­son.

“For me, I’m re­al­ly hap­py to have my four-pronged pace at­tack back in Shamar, the two Josephs and Jay­den (Seales),” Sam­my said. “We missed them at the back end of last sea­son, so hav­ing them back, plus the ex­pe­ri­ence of Ke­mar Roach, is a re­al plus.”

Wick­et­keep­er Joshua da Sil­va al­so re­turns to the Test XI af­ter a 17-month ab­sence since the drawn Pak­istan se­ries in Jan­u­ary 2025. Da Sil­va’s strong do­mes­tic sea­son — 415 runs at an av­er­age of 59 in the West In­dies Cham­pi­onship — earned him a re­call and po­si­tions him to re­sume keep­ing du­ties while Shai Hope con­tin­ues as a spe­cial­ist bats­man af­ter scor­ing con­sec­u­tive Test cen­turies and av­er­ag­ing 49 since re­lin­quish­ing the gloves.

The Sir Vi­vian Richards sur­face favoured pace dur­ing the do­mes­tic cham­pi­onship, a fac­tor that could see spin vice-cap­tain Jomel War­ri­can omit­ted in favour of the re­turn­ing seam quar­tet of Alzarri Joseph, Shamar Joseph, Jay­den Seales and Ke­mar Roach. Roach sits third on the Windies–Sri Lan­ka lead­ing wick­et-tak­ers list with 32 scalps.