I sup­pose all may be for­giv­en for the poor Men’s T20 World Cup or­gan­ised by the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil as the fi­nal played in Bar­ba­dos was ex­cit­ing, thrilling, nerve-rack­ing, dra­mat­ic, etc.; it was a fi­nal be­fit­ting of an oc­ca­sion like a World Cup fi­nal.

I won’t go back as I said enough about the poor, po­lit­i­cal­ly or­gan­ised World Cup, and it is now time to con­grat­u­late Bar­ba­dos on a won­der­ful show. Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley must still be smil­ing, ex­cept Hur­ri­cane Beryl would have come too soon for her to bask in the glo­ry of the fi­nal. She would have had to turn quick­ly to fight the rav­ages of the Hur­ri­cane that thank­ful­ly did not do too much dam­age to Bar­ba­dos. We must spare a thought for St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and the oth­er is­lands rav­aged by this dev­as­tat­ing storm. My deep­est con­do­lences to those who lost loved ones over the past few days.

Go­ing back to the fi­nal, the pitch was ex­cel­lent. A score of 176 runs is about par on a pitch of that na­ture, even though In­dia would have loved an­oth­er 15 runs. But still, at the halfway stage, they would have felt qui­et­ly con­fi­dent that their bowl­ing at­tack, es­pe­cial­ly with the dev­as­tat­ing Jasprit Bum­rah lead­ing it, could have de­fend­ed the 176. The South African team de­pends heav­i­ly on the bat­ting of Quin­ton de Kock, Hein­rich Klaasen and David Miller.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, cap­tain Aiden Markram has not had a good se­ries com­ing in­to the fi­nal. As ex­pect­ed, the trio of de Kock, Klaasen, and Miller near­ly won it for the Pro­teas as the game swung back and forth. Ul­ti­mate­ly, South Africa must be ex­treme­ly dis­ap­point­ed as they should have come off the field vic­to­ri­ous as the mo­men­tum was on their side at a cru­cial stage in the game. Bra­vo to In­dia for their fight­ing spir­it and nev­er-say-die at­ti­tude in bring­ing it home.

So much great sport is go­ing on - the Eu­ros, Co­pa Amer­i­ca and Wim­ble­don. How­ev­er, let us fo­cus on the West In­dies Test tour of Eng­land. It is such a pity that the West In­dies have not played any test crick­et since that scin­til­lat­ing vic­to­ry against Aus­tralia in their back­yard in Jan­u­ary. The West In­dies team was on a high at that time and must have felt that they could op­pose any Test team in the world and come away vic­to­ri­ous. What was good about that vic­to­ry was the com­bat­ive­ness of the team. They nev­er seemed to give up against the Aussies, and who can for­get the per­for­mance of the then-un­known Shamar Joseph? He in­spired the West In­dies to great heights.

Eng­land is go­ing to be an­oth­er se­ri­ous chal­lenge for Kraigg Brath­waite's team. I ex­pect the ball to dance in the Eng­lish con­di­tions, and if the West In­di­an bats­men can’t move their feet and shake to the mu­sic, they could find them­selves in trou­ble. Let's take a look at the West In­dies team. At the top of the or­der is skip­per Brath­waite, who knows the Eng­lish con­di­tions all too well. Even though he did not have a good tour of Aus­tralia, a lot will de­pend on him.

The oth­er open­ers - Mikyle Louis and Zachary Mc­Cask­ie are new to in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et, and nei­ther have played a test match, so it will be chal­leng­ing for them, and they will have to stand tall and make a state­ment. Louis had a tremen­dous first-class sea­son a few months ago, but I am un­sure as to how much crick­et he has played since then. How­ev­er, he ap­pears to be re­silient.

The rest of the bat­ting cen­tres around the tal­ent­ed Al­ick Athanaze, who needs to be­gin to come good and prove his worth at this lev­el, as we need to stop say­ing how much of a tal­ent he is. Kirk McKen­zie is an­oth­er won­der­ful shot­mak­er but tends to be im­petu­ous and must re­alise that he has an en­tire day to bat. Tevin Im­lach is an­oth­er tal­ent who has not played at the Test lev­el but has shown, on more than one oc­ca­sion, that he is a young and tal­ent­ed crick­eter.

Kavem Hodge makes up the top-or­der bats­men, and he did rea­son­ably well in Aus­tralia. Now, he has the chance to an­nounce him­self once again, but in Eng­lish con­di­tions. How the se­lec­tors bal­ance the bat­ting will be in­ter­est­ing as they play on­ly one prac­tice match, which start­ed yes­ter­day be­fore the Test se­ries, so the op­por­tu­ni­ty will be giv­en to those who show ear­ly form.

The bowl­ing will be han­dled by Alzarri Joseph and the ex­u­ber­ant Shamar Joseph, who are both ex­pect­ed to do well giv­en the con­di­tions. The bowler I am most ex­cit­ed about is Jay­den Seales, who is mak­ing his come­back at Test lev­el. The vet­er­an war horse - Ja­son Hold­er - is back and will un­doubt­ed­ly add his ex­pe­ri­ence with both bat and ball. Gu­dakesh Motie and Kevin Sin­clair will take care of the spin­ning de­part­ment. Motie has shown a re­mark­able im­prove­ment with his left-arm or­tho­dox bowl­ing, while Sin­clair will add va­ri­ety with his off-spin and is a good bats­man com­ing in down the or­der.

There is no doubt the Test team is tal­ent­ed, es­pe­cial­ly the bowlers, and if they bowl well on pitch­es that should help them, they can cre­ate prob­lems for a good Eng­lish bat­ting team. Let's take a quick peek to see what Eng­land has to of­fer. They are led by the ir­re­press­ible Ben Stokes, and, as men­tioned, they pos­sess a wealth of bat­ting tal­ent, with the ex­pe­ri­enced Joe Root lead­ing the way. Open­ers Zak Craw­ley and Ben Duck­ett are ex­pect­ed to give them a good start, and with Ol­lie Pope and Har­ry Brook al­so in the mid­dle, they will feel con­fi­dent that the team will make good to­tals.

James An­der­son has been picked for the Lord's Test match, and at 41 years old, he will be look­ing to go out with plen­ty of fire­works and add to his 700 Test wick­ets. Thank­ful­ly for the West In­dies, there is no Jofra Archer or Adil Rashid, but they still have bowlers suit­ed to the Eng­lish con­di­tions. In the 20-year-old off-spin­ner Shoaib Bashir, they must feel that if the pitch­es turn at all, he could be their match-win­ner.

It should be an ex­cit­ing se­ries, but this West In­dies team should not be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed, and just as they did in Aus­tralia, it can spring a sur­prise. Eng­land will be guard­ed not to take them light­ly, but at home, the Eng­lish will start as favourites, but, as the late great Aus­tralian Richie Be­naud once said, “Crick­et is a game of glo­ri­ous un­cer­tain­ties.”

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.