BRIDGETOWN – While the ab­sence of pac­er Alzarri Joseph for the first two T20Is against Eng­land will be a huge loss, West In­dies cap­tain Rov­man Pow­ell be­lieves the re­turn of Nicholas Pooran and An­dre Rus­sell is a ma­jor boost to the re­gion­al side.

The West In­dies will face off against their archri­vals on Sat­ur­day in the first of five T20Is at Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos and will be hop­ing to con­tin­ue their im­pres­sive form at home, where they have been un­beat­en in four T20 in­ter­na­tion­al se­ries since 2023.

How­ev­er, they will have to do so with­out their main fast bowler Joseph, who was sus­pend­ed for two games fol­low­ing his be­hav­iour in the third and fi­nal One Day In­ter­na­tion­al on Wednes­day.

Speak­ing dur­ing a pre-match press con­fer­ence at Kens­ing­ton Oval on Fri­day, Pow­ell ad­mit­ted that while Joseph’s loss was sub­stan­tial, he be­lieved the team still had the qual­i­ty to match Eng­land.

“I think it’s a def­i­nite loss for us. He’s the spear of our at­tack, he’s one of our more ex­pe­ri­enced bowlers.

“Hav­ing said that, we have ca­pa­ble re­place­ments and when you look at the team and look at the bench strength, there are play­ers in the wings who are wait­ing, so it’s an op­por­tu­ni­ty for some­body to step up and be count­ed,” Pow­ell said.

Pow­ell said the re­turn of Rus­sel and Pooran, who both missed the re­cent tour of Sri Lan­ka, was wel­comed.

“Rus­sell is our most ex­pe­ri­enced play­er and he’s not just play­ing on the back of be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced, he’s play­ing on the back of putting on per­for­mances for us and this se­ries pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for him to do that, whether it be from a bat­ting stand­point or a bowl­ing stand­point.

“Pooran is good and it’s good that he gets some time to spend at home. You know he missed the last se­ries be­cause he need­ed some rest, so it’s good to have him back fresh and hope­ful­ly, he can con­tin­ue what he showed us ear­li­er in the year,” Pow­ell said.

The skip­per said while there was al­ways pres­sure play­ing at home, the West In­dies was rel­ish­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play against Eng­land.

“I think for us, every time Eng­land comes to the Caribbean it’s a big ri­val­ry. You know Eng­land is one of the best teams in the world, so they def­i­nite­ly bring out the best in us from a T20 per­spec­tive,” Pow­ell said.

“I think we’ve been play­ing some good T20 crick­et, so this se­ries pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to con­tin­ue to do that.

“There’s al­ways pres­sure play­ing at home, es­pe­cial­ly play­ing against such a good op­po­nent in Eng­land, but for­tu­nate­ly for us as a T20 team we’ve been man­ag­ing that pres­sure pret­ty well so far,” he added.

Eng­land cap­tain Jos But­tler has ful­ly re­cov­ered from his calf in­jury and will take over the reins af­ter miss­ing the en­tire ODI se­ries.

He said he was look­ing for­ward to a keen­ly con­test­ed se­ries and hoped Bar­ba­di­ans Jofra Archer and Ja­cob Bethell, who are in the Eng­land squad, will have a big im­pact.

“We’ve been here re­cent­ly. The West In­dies are a top team and we’re look­ing for­ward to a great chal­lenge,” But­tler said.

“Hope­ful­ly Jofra will have a re­al­ly big im­pact and it’s been good to see Jofra avail­able for the ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od of time.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly he missed a lot of crick­et for a while, so it’s great to see him back and fiery.

“Just like Ja­cob Bethell he’s got a big his­to­ry here in Bar­ba­dos and I’m sure they’ll have lots of friends and fam­i­ly com­ing down to watch and wish­ing him well.

“He’s a su­per­star and I’m sure he’ll have a big im­pact,” he added.

CMC

Squads

WEST IN­DIES: Rov­man Pow­ell (cap­tain), Ros­ton Chase, Matthew Forde, Shim­ron Het­my­er, Ter­rance Hinds, Shai Hope, Akeal Ho­sein, Shamar Joseph, Bran­don King, Evin Lewis, Gu­dakesh Motie, Nicholas Pooran, An­dre Rus­sell, Sher­fane Ruther­ford, Ro­mario Shep­herd.

Eng­land: Jos But­tler (cap­tain), Phil Salt (wick­et­keep­er), Will Jacks, Liam Liv­ing­stone, Ja­cob Bethell, Dan Mous­ley, Sam Cur­ran, Jamie Over­ton, Saqib Mah­mood, Adil Rashid, Jofra Archer, Re­ece Top­ley, Jafer Chohan, Jor­dan Cox, Re­han Ahmed, Re­ece Top­ley, John Turn­er.