Venue: Providence Stadium, Guyana
Date: Sunday 10, July
BetXchange Odds:
Form
The white ball T20Is between the West Indies and Bangladesh that just came to a close give us some idea of where this series of three ODIs will be heading. The T20s bounced around the islands, but the rest of this series will be played out at the beautiful Providence Stadium in Guyana. This should give the home side plenty of encouragement as they just beat Bangladesh by five wickets at the same venue a few days ago.
The Windies took the T20s 2-0. After the first match in Dominica was washed out, they came out strong and finished 193/5 in the second contest. This proved more than enough as Bangladesh struggled in their run chase and finished 35 runs short.
The third T20 saw Bangladesh bat first. They put up 13/5 in their 20 overs, a score that the home side ran down after 18.2 overs of play. Nicholas Pooran top-scored with an unbeaten 74 in the five-wicket win.
West Indies
The West Indies find themselves in a weird spot in the 50-over format of the game. They are reliable in the T20s, but their record in ODIs is spotty at best. They have won only one of their last four series and that was an expected 3-0 demolition in the Netherlands. Whitewashed by both Pakistan and India sting, while a 2-1 series defeat at the hands of Ireland on home turf shocked the cricketing world.
Some of this can be put down to experimentation in the ranks. For this series, they are bringing out some of the big guns. Anderson Philip and Jayden Seales return to fire their pace at the Bangladeshi batsmen, while Shai Hope brings his electric bat to the opening partnership.
Bangladesh
Bangladesh will be missing arguably their best player for the ODIs here. Shakib al Hasan headed home after the T20Is and no one really seems sure why. It is speculated that the reason has something to do with these matches not being part of the ODI Super League, but there is clearly friction here that Bangladesh needs to sort out in a hurry.
In better news, opener Tamim Iqbal is back in the squad, but without both al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim it is hard to see how Bangladesh approaches this with any confidence.
Best Bets
This is an interesting one. The line suggests a great gulf in class between the two squads that the results don’t really track. That is especially true when looking at head-to-head meetings where Bangladesh have beaten the Windies eight times in a row and 11 of their last 13.
If you expect a Windies win then don’t bet the line. Instead, look for a prop like Shai Hope to win Man of the Match at 6/1 or Jayden Seales to be the Windies’ top bowler at 22/10 with BetXchange.
