Shai Hope—The anchor West Indies cannot afford to lose

The West In­dies team should have gone in­to yes­ter­day’s first NB One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al (ODI) against Sri Lan­ka full of con­fi­dence based on state­ments from coach King Sam­my and cap­tain Shai Hope.

And why not? The West In­dies have made great strides in re­cent years to turn their home turf in­to a fortress, se­cur­ing re­cent se­ries vic­to­ries against Eng­land (twice), Bangladesh, and Pak­istan.

Sure, they suf­fered a 3-0 blip against New Zealand late last year, but two of those match­es were very close and could have gone ei­ther way. Sam­my’s “fortress” claim might be thor­ough­ly test­ed when heavy­weights like In­dia or Aus­tralia come knock­ing, but he does not plan the fix­tures, and you can on­ly slay the teams parked on your front lawn. Even with the set­back in New Zealand, this ODI squad is for­mi­da­ble, and Sri Lan­ka will have to play out of their skins to top­ple them. Here is a look at the per­son­nel, the strat­e­gy, and the glo­ri­ous chaos we can ex­pect as this se­ries gets un­der­way.

Let’s talk about the fi­nal XI, which prac­ti­cal­ly picked it­self while we were all look­ing the oth­er way. Let’s start with the cap­tain. We of­ten call skip­per Shai Hope the Go­ril­la Glue of this line­up, but re­al­ly, he is the foun­da­tion­al ar­chi­tec­ture hold­ing up the en­tire roof. If he falls for sin­gle dig­its, the col­lec­tive blood pres­sure of crick­et fans across the Caribbean spikes to dan­ger­ous lev­els.

On to the open­ers and the tried-and-test­ed John Camp­bell as­sumes his usu­al post at the top. Be­side him? Justin Greaves, step­ping in for Al­ick Athanaze. Greaves is a fas­ci­nat­ing enig­ma. He has the un­de­ni­able tal­ent to score a ma­jes­tic 100, but oc­ca­sion­al­ly bats with the care­less ar­ro­gance of a man who thinks the bowler is mere­ly there to fetch the ball. Mov­ing up to open might just give him the time he needs to di­al down the care­less­ness and set­tle in.

On to the mid­dle-or­der en­forcers, where Sher­fane Ruther­ford re­mains the ul­ti­mate wild­card and can turn any ODI on its head, as he at­tacks with full force. He is ca­pa­ble of both chaot­ic ag­gres­sion and sur­pris­ing­ly ma­ture con­sol­i­da­tion when the top or­der in­evitably de­cides to take an ear­ly show­er. He will play a ma­jor role in the mid­dle of the in­nings. Mean­while, Kea­cy Car­ty con­tin­ues to linger; he has the un­de­ni­able abil­i­ty, but his run-scor­ing con­sis­ten­cy cur­rent­ly ri­vals a coin toss.

The bowl­ing at­tack is look­ing spicy, leav­ing no room for the ever-im­prov­ing Shamar Springer, who will sim­ply have to wait his turn. Ros­ton Chase, at the ODI and even at the T20 lev­el, has much more to of­fer in white-ball crick­et (where he is a bona fide as­set) than at the test lev­el. Un­less he has a spe­cial and unique type of re­la­tion­ship with the King, he should be re­moved from the Test eleven, as he has done ab­solute­ly noth­ing at that lev­el in the past year to jus­ti­fy his Test sta­tus. Greaves’ bowl­ing can be tighter, and maybe a spell with Dwayne Bra­vo can help him, es­pe­cial­ly at the death overs, as the West In­dies have yet to find a re­place­ment for Bra­vo to ei­ther get wick­ets or bowl a few dot balls in the last four or so overs.

Alzarri Joseph makes a tri­umphant re­turn. When fo­cused, he is a ma­jes­tic, ter­ri­fy­ing force of na­ture. His pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tive in this se­ries? Bowl­ing at the stumps and not glar­ing an­gri­ly at his field­ers for every mi­nor in­frac­tion.

In the wait­ing room, it’s a slight tragedy to see Ac­k­eem Au­guste miss out, though with Shim­ron Het­my­er on­ly para­chut­ing in for the third ODI, Au­guste’s mo­ment in the sun might yet ar­rive. The same goes for Amir Jan­goo, whose mag­nif­i­cent de­but cen­tu­ry against Bangladesh like­ly buys him a front-row seat on the bench un­less the se­ries is wrapped up ear­ly.

Then we come down to the bowlers, who are all ca­pa­ble with the bat. Matthew Forde keeps his place even though the bowl­ing unit is stronger than it was in the last se­ries. Shamar Joseph and Jay­den Seales round out the lethal, youth­ful pace at­tack. Both need to re­mem­ber that ODI pitch­es are of­ten flat and are more suit­ed to the bats­men, so raw pace with­out vari­a­tion on these tracks is just a faster way to get hit in­to the stands. The ball will not seam about off the pitch like a Four-Day or Test match sce­nario, and how they mix up their de­liv­er­ies is what will con­fuse the Sri Lankan bats­men. It’s not just about speed; it’s about de­cep­tion.

Springer is im­prov­ing all the time, but, at the mo­ment, he will not play ahead of the quar­tet of Forde, the two Josephs and Seales. He may get a game to test where he is at in this for­mat, but I do not doubt that when he gets his chance, he will do well. Round­ing out the at­tack is Gu­dakesh Motie, who con­tin­ues his reign as the re­gion’s most vast­ly im­proved left-arm or­tho­dox spin­ner. Paired with Chase, the duo should pro­vide the per­fect com­ple­ment to the fast-bowl­ing car­tel.

What about the op­po­si­tion, Sri Lan­ka? Make no mis­take, these are high-stakes games. Sri Lan­ka sits com­fort­ably at sixth in the ODI rank­ings, ex­act­ly three places above the West In­dies. They haven’t crossed the globe just to en­joy the beach­es; they are here to de­fend their rank­ing.

Their se­lec­tion pan­el (note not se­lec­tor) has hand­ed the white-ball cap­tain­cy to the pro­lif­ic run ma­chine Kusal Mendis, tak­ing over from Charith Asalan­ka. But the re­al headaches for the West In­dies will come from the ball. Wanin­du Hasaranga, the undis­put­ed dan­ger man and mas­ter leg-spin­ner, is back from a ham­string in­jury and ready to cause ab­solute chaos in the mid­dle overs.

The mys­tery off-spin­ner Ma­heesh Theek­shana is an­oth­er dan­ger man for Sri Lan­ka, with what seems to be an end­less ar­ray of vari­a­tions. Dush­man­tha Chameera is quick, and his pure, unadul­ter­at­ed pace threat­ens to make ear­ly, dev­as­tat­ing in­roads in­to the West In­di­an top or­der.

It is head­ing for an ex­cit­ing and chal­leng­ing se­ries, and I ex­pect it to go right down to the third en­counter.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.