First Test: West Indies v England, Antigua, April 13-17.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Cook is English.

[budgetmeansbudget]

Wondering how many people on here actually want England to do well in the WI?

[Gingerfinch]

Wondering how many people on here actually want England to do well in the WI?

I do.

[Gingerfinch]

Cook is English.

I was talking about Trott!

[Arthur Crabtree]

Hmm. Likely story...

[Arthur Crabtree]

From the teams I implied from the order I put the squads, cricinfo has Holder in for Roach or Bishoo, Hope for Blackwood, and Jordan for Plunkett.

I'll be back at the toss to tell you who was right.

[rich1uk]

Wondering how many people on here actually want England to do well in the WI?

can only speak for myself but I want England to win every game they play regardless of whats going on behind the scenes

criticism of the management structure and wanting to see some significant change within the ECB doesn't mean I stop supporting the team

I even want cook to score runs once he crosses that rope , even if I don't rate him as captain

[Gingerfinch]

Jimmy's 100th test, which will probably bring the England test wicket record.

[rich1uk]

Jimmy's 100th test, which will probably bring the England test wicket record.

yep could be a very big day for him depending on the toss

[rich1uk]

WI win the toss and will bowl

so hopefully Anderson wont be taking the field today

trott is opening with cook , his 50th test as well

stokes to bat at #6 and tredwell plays in front of rashid

[Gingerfinch]

Stokes for Ali, then.

End of play prediction. 293-3.

[mikesiva]

BFL, looks who sits at the top of this list....

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine ... tournament

For those posters who were calling for Gayle to be dropped, Devon Smith was the next cab on the rank.

He has an average of less than 25 in tests, and passes 50 once in 10 innings. Shiv passes fifty better than 1 in 3. Well done to him on a good domestic season, but one good domestic season doesn't make you a good test player. Just ask Mark Ramprakash. His 115 runs in 5 innings, HS 47 in the recent series against South Africa doesn't suggest that he's translated this domestic form into the test arena.

I agree that Devon is not up to standard...but the only other opening batsman on that list to score 350 runs and average over 40 this FC season is Tyrone Theophile, who was Devon's opening partner at the Windwards, and Devon consistently outscored him.

To me, it would be a wiser course of action to let Theophile play for the A team, and work his way into the Test team, rather than throw him to the wolves....

9.30am: West Indies win the toss and bowl, Denesh Ramdin says he is hoping to exploit whatever life there currently is in the deck. They've shied away from playing two spinners, so there's no return for Devendra Bishoo; Shai Hope and Carlos Brathwaite also miss out.

[budgetmeansbudget]

Wondering how many people on here actually want England to do well in the WI?

I do.

Me too, but I expect some people aren't too bothered either way.

Plus not much to gain and all to lose for Cook and Moores as according to Mr Graves we should comfortably beat this ordinary team, and therefore woe betide Captain and Coach if we fail, and with Pietersen waiting in the wings. By the way has he tweeted any good luck messages before the first test?!

[rich1uk]

the tredwell inclusion is strange , cant even get a game for kent in FC cricket but is deemed good enough to play for England , would have thought this was the perfect chance to get rashid involved against a relatively weak batting lineup

[mikesiva]

West Indies: 1 Devon Smith, 2 Kraigg Brathwaite, 3 Darren Bravo, 4 Marlon Samuels, 5 Shivnarine Chanderpaul, 6 Jermaine Blackwood, 7 Denesh Ramdin (capt/wk), 8 Jason Holder, 9 Jerome Taylor, 10 Kemar Roach, 11 Sulieman Benn.
England: 1 Alastair Cook (capt), 2 Jonathan Trott, 3 Gary Ballance, 4 Ian Bell, 5 Joe Root, 6 Ben Stokes, 7 Jos Buttler (wkt) 8 Chris Jordan, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 James Tredwell, 11 James Anderson.