Balm Before the Storm as England Seek Momentum to Launch Trophy Quest

Chris Stocks in St Kitts suggests that although the opposition will not be the strongest, the Champions Trophy campaign will be starting in the Caribbean.

- Chris Stocks

With fewer than 100 days to go until the start of the Champions Trophy, this tour of the Caribbean is when England’s preparations for that tournament get serious.

The three one-day internationals against the West Indies, starting in Antigua a week today, begin the countdown to a competition on home soil that Eoin Morgan’s side need to excel in to underline their progress in 50-over cricket since the last World Cup in 2015.

The Champions Trophy will also give an indication of how far the team still need to go ahead of the 2019 World Cup in England.

Much has changed since that shambolic campaign in Australia and New Zealand in 2015, with a nucleus of exciting, young players dragging England’s white-ball cricket kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

In truth what awaits them here in the Caribbean is a weak West Indies side shorn of almost all their top talent through a combination of political fallings-out and downright strange selection.

A 3-0 series win should be expected against opposition missing, among others, Chris Gayle, Sunil Narine, Darren Sammy, Marlon Samuels, Sulieman Benn and Johnson Charles.

There will be no lack of motivation for the hosts given this is Australian Stuart Law’s first series as West Indies coach. And in captain Jason Holder, Carlos Brathwaite, whose four final-over sixes against Ben Stokes in Kolkata won the West Indies the World T20 last year, and Devendra Bishoo, there are some familiar names.

It is, though, in effect a West Indies B team.

The conditions will be different and the opposition questionable – West Indies remember didn’t even qualify for the Champions Trophy, such has been their recent fall from grace in one-day cricket.