World Cup 2019: Pakistan vs West Indies match preview

LONDON: The Pakistan cricket team is all set to begin its ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 campaign today by playing against twice World Champions West Indies at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, 

The match is scheduled to start at 2:30 pm (PST) and 10:30 am (local time).

1992 Cricket World Cup Champions Pakistan have decent stats in multi-team cricket events held in England. The team won the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy and the 2009 T20 World Cup. 

Coming out of consecutive ten losses in One-Day International cricket matches, Pakistan aims to get a head start in the tournament by coping up with their bowling, batting, and fielding meltdowns.

Against their recent series with England, it was visible that even scoring more than 300 wasn’t enough to grab a win and the team needs to explore a new strategy in order to be successful in the World Cup. 

Pakistan has always been top notch in their bowling but the recent ODI series versus England proves that Pakistan needs to carry out variations and changes in their bowling strategy since, the batsmen didn’t appear off-track, instead, they played with an element of decency, putting 300 plus scores on the board in a fifty over game.

Losing one of the warmup matches, with the other being called off due to rain, Pakistan needs to fill in the blank space with potential, some hard-hitting, and reverse swing in death overs.

Pakistan requires a solid and potent base, especially in the top to keep striking on the flow of runs in the middle order, and even some element of power-hitting is required by the tail-enders. Statistics have shown that the present day Pakistani team has players like Babar Azam, Mohammad Amir who have the ability to take the legacy of Pakistani cricket legends forward and have the capability to destroy the opponent team.

West Indies have proved themselves as one of the strongest participants of ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. The last they won the World Cup was 40 years ago. The recent squad has a balanced combination of experienced and fresh players, all ready to put on a festival of runs and wickets.

West Indies have recently outclassed New Zealand in a warm-up match by scoring phenomenal 421 runs with unreal power hitting by the 25-year-old Shai Hope, who fetched a century on 85 balls with nine 4s and four 6s, followed by decent half-centuries of Andre Russell and Evin Lewis.

Their experienced power-hitter Chris Gayle already has eyes and admirers throughout the world.

Imposing such a total on board clearly defines how well they are prepared to gear up against their opponents in the team. West Indies do have amazing hot-fire aggressive pace attack in the form of Shannon Gabriel and Oshane Thomas but they do lack in wicket-taking spin bowlers.

Overall, both teams are strongly prepared for their beginning of the official tournament from today. They do need to decode the winning plan and strategy in order to put a pyrotechnic show of amazing talent and stunning abilities.

Pak-WI ODI Stats:

Head to head matches: 133

WI won: 70

Pak won: 60

Tied: 3

Highest total: 339/4 by West Indies in 2005

Lowest total: 43/10 by Pakistan in 1993

Most wickets: Wasim Akram (Pak) 89 wickets in 64 matches

Most runs: DL Haynes (WI) 2390 runs in 65 matches

Pakistan’s Squad for ICC World Cup 2019: Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Hafeez, Sarfaraz Ahmed (c & wk), Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Amir, Haris Sohail, Babar Azam, Imam-ul-Haq, Asif Ali, Imad Wasim, Fakhar Zaman, Shadab Khan, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Hasnain

West Indies’ Squad for ICC World Cup 2019: Jason Holder (c), Evin Lewis, Darren Bravo, Chris Gayle, Andre Russell, Carlos Brathwaite, Nicholas Pooran, Oshane Thomas, Shai Hope (wk), Shimron Hetmyer, Fabien Allen, Sheldon Cottrell, Shannon Gabriel, Kemar Roach, Ashley Nurse