Australia seek to maintain ascendancy against vibrant West Indies

ICC: After recording wins in their respective opening games, Australia and West Indies will look to fight fire with fire when they take on each other in the 10th match of the World Cup later today.

Overview

Australia excelled on all three fronts against Afghanistan, winning by a convincing margin of seven wickets. While David Warner’s success was hardly a surprise, skipper Aaron Finch, too, impressed with his stroke-filled 66. The bowling unit, one of the strongest in the tournament, seemed to have all bases covered on Saturday. They will, however, face a greater challenge, against a power-hitting unit, at a high-scoring venue today.

With their experienced players in prime form, West Indies seem as motivated as they could be. They came up with an aggressive approach in their opening game against Pakistan, much like they did against New Zealand in the warm-ups, and bundled out the opposition for just 105. The performance of their fast bowlers in those cloudy conditions was a throwback to West Indies’ early domination in World Cup cricket.

With Andre Russell having already declared his intent to attack Australia’s openers with short-pitched stuff, and Nathan Coulter-Nile promising to return the favour, fans will be in for an exciting contest when the finalists of the inaugural World Cup edition take to the field.

Key Players

Pat Cummins (Australia): Cummins has been leading Australia’s pace attack for the past few years with some consistent performances. The Sydney-born pacer, who took three wickets in his side’s first game, against Afghanistan, will look to attack the Windies openers with short balls, which could potentially make for an exciting session of cricket at Trent Bridge.

Shai Hope (West Indies): Hope’s failure in the small run-chase against Pakistan might be considered as nothing more than a minor blip as he comes into the tournament on the back of some significant performances. The right-hander, who scored a fluent century against the strong New Zealand bowling attack in the warm-ups, will look to do something similar against an equally potent Australian attack.

Conditions

It’s expected to be a cloudy start, with chances of rains throughout the day. While fast bowlers are expected to get assistance due to the overcast conditions early on, as it happened for West Indies against Pakistan, batsmen from both teams will be on an all-attack mode, especially given the short boundaries at Trent Bridge.

Squads

Australia: Aaron Finch (c), David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Steve Smith, Shaun Marsh, Alex Carey (wk), Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc, Kane Richardson, Pat Cummins, Jason Behrendorff, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Adam Zampa, Nathan Lyon

West Indies: Jason Holder (c), Fabian Allen, Darren Bravo, Shannon Gabriel, Shimron Hetmyer, Evin Lewis, Nicholas Pooran, Andre Russell, Carlos Brathwaite, Sheldon Cottrell, Chris Gayle, Shai Hope, Ashley Nurse, Kemar Roach, Oshane Thomas