BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Feb 18 (AFP): England enter the home stretch of World Cup (WC) preparation with a five-match one-day international series beginning on Wednesday at the Kensington Oval against a West Indies team seeking to feed off the success of their Test side.
Fresh from a surprising 2-1 triumph in the Wisden Trophy duel, Jason Holder leads a Caribbean team which continues to struggle in the 50-over format and is hampered by the absence of key players for a variety of reasons.
In contrast, Eoin Morgan's England settled squad have powered to the top of the world rankings and a comfortable 171-run victory in their lone warm-up fixture on Sunday suggests that they will not be hamstrung by the challenges encountered by the Test team against surprisingly competitive and fiercely motivated opponents.
Opening batsman Jason Roy and Test skipper Joe Root both stroked fluent hundreds in a total of 371 for seven, while all the bowlers used enjoyed a measure of success against the West Indies Vice-Chancellor's XI with opening bowlers Mark Wood and Chris Woakes, together with leg-spinner Adil Rashid, taking two wickets each.
While the memory of a 381-run thrashing in the first match of the three-Test series less than a month ago is painfully fresh, England's last ODI at Kensington Oval two years ago was a 186-run rout which completed a 3-0 sweep of a home outfit in complete disarray.
West Indies results have not improved significantly since that humbling, with the former champions missing out on the 2017 Champions Trophy and scraping through last year's qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe to advance to the World Cup in England and Wales, which starts on May 30.
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