THE first Test between West Indies and England bowls off on Wednesday at Rose Bowl, Southampton.
It is the first Test series to be played amid coronavirus pandemic.
It is also West Indies first series against England since they lost the last one at home in February 2019.
Captaining the West Indies team will be Jason Holder while Ben Stokes is stand-in captain for England.
That’s because Joe Root will miss the match this week for the first time since 2014 to attend the birth of his second child.
Eyes will be on the likes of Ben Stokes and Joe Denly with batting averages of 41.21 and 34.85 respectively.
They will be coming up against the likes of Kemar Roach and Jason Holder who both have admirable economy rates of 2.50 and 2.27.
As to conditions on the field, Commentator Daren Ganga told ESPN on Tuesday: “We got to respect the statistics at the venue, spinners dominate.”
He said, “There’s a reason for that. If you look at the previous test matches that England played at that venue, they were against Sri Lanka and India, very spin dominant teams.”
Ganga added, “Naturally you would expect that spinners would bowl a lot of overs and they would probably be more successful than the seamers.”
The squads:
| ENGLAND | WEST INDIES |
| Ben Stokes | Jason Holder |
| Dom Bess | Jermaine Blackwood |
| Rory Burns | Nkrumah Bonner |
| Zak Crawley | Kraigg Brathwaite |
| Ollie Pope | Shamarh Brooks |
| Chris Woakes | John Campbell |
| James Anderson | Roston Chase |
| Jofra Archer | Rahkeem Cornwall |
| Stuart Broad | Shane Dowrich |
| Jos Buttler | Shannon Gabriel |
| Joe Denly | Chemar Holder |
| Dom Sibley | Shai Hope |
| Mark Wood | Alzarri Joseph |
| Raymon Reifer | |
| Kemar Roach |
