One Day International 2019: England Favourites to Win First ODI
The One Day International series between West Indies and England starts on Wednesday 20th February at the Kensington Oval, Barbados. This is the first of five games in the series as both teams continue their preparations for the 2019 World Cup.
England Focused
England will host the World Cup later this year and their focus has been on the ODI format of the game in the lead-up to the tournament. Having lost the Test series 2-1 to the West Indies, including a heavy defeat at the Kensington Oval, England will be happy to return to ODI action.
The Three Lions lost a one off match to Scotland, which was a shock but have won each of their last nine ODI series, with wins coming against stronger teams than the West Indies. England have defeated Sri Lank, India and Australia, the latter of which was a convincing 5-0 victory on home soil.
Therefore, it is little surprise to see England begin this game as favourites at 2/5 with Ladbrokes.
West Indies in Poor Form
West Indies will take some confidence from their win in the Test series but will come up against a different England team in the first ODI. West Indies own form in the ODI arena is poor and they have lost 12 of their last 13 standard ODI series. You must go back to 2014 to find the last time the hosts won a ODI series and that was against Bangladesh.
West Indies are the outsiders for this match, priced at 19/10 with William Hill.
Morgan Returns
England will see Eoin Morgan step back into the team for this series and resume his role as ODI captain. He batted well in the most recent ODI series against Sri Lanka and scored a total of 195 runs in the rain-affected series, which included two half-centuries.
Morgan will be aiming to lead by example and take England to a 1-0 lead in this series. You can back Morgan at 8/1 with Betfair to be the top run scorer in the match.
Hope for West Indies
West Indies have an in-form batsman of their own in Shai Hope. He performed superbly in their most recent series against Bangladesh, recording three excellent scores. Hope registered 43, 146 not out and 108 not out in the series and will be feeling very confident of scoring big again in this match.
West Indies will need their batsman to fire if they are to have any chance of winning and Hope is on offer at 4/1 with Ladbrokes to be the top batsman for West Indies.