Match facts
March 20-24, RoseauStart time 1000 (1400 GMT)
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Big Picture
The Barbados Test
between West Indies and Zimbabwe lasted just over seven sessions, with
the hosts winning by nine wickets a few minutes after a forced lunch
break on day three. If you didn't see the game, you would find it hard
to believe that Zimbabwe dominated at least two sessions, and even had a
reasonable shot at taking a first-innings lead. They had West Indies
151 for 6 after making 211, and it needed a game-changing knock from
Darren Sammy at No. 8 to suppress Zimbabwe.
The visitors were competitive with the ball, barring the expensive
legspinner Graeme Cremer, who was targeted by Sammy and Marlon Samuels.
It is their capitulation with the bat in both innings that will bother
Zimbabwe. They were 100 for 2 before collapsing to 211 in the first
innings, and lasted 41.4 overs in the second, making 107. An apparent
inability to survive even straightforward offbreaks from Shane
Shillingford and Samuels led to Zimbabwe losing as many as 13 wickets to
spin, nine of them to Shillingford alone.
In the previous Test
played at Roseau's Windsor Park, the venue for the second Test,
spinners claimed 26 of the 40 wickets Australia and West Indies lost.
Shillingford himself picked up a match haul of ten, Nathan Lyon followed
with seven, and even Michael Clarke's part-time slow left-arm fetched
him a five-for. Those figures show Zimbabwe have their work cut out,
especially with Sammy saying the pitch for this match looked similar to
the one on which his side had played Australia.
West Indies may be on their longest winning streak since 1988, but they
will have reflected on their position in Barbados before Sammy bailed
them out. Samuels and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, of all people, were guilty
of throwing away starts. The opening partnership between Chris Gayle
and Kieran Powell began with a 254-run stand against New Zealand in July
2012, but hasn't produced anything of note since then. A deflated
Zimbabwe side, who have lost all internationals on this tour, could be a
soft target for the West Indies batsmen to make amends.
Form guide
West Indies: WWWWW (Completed matches, most recent first)Zimbabwe: LLLLW
Players to watch
The West Indies fast bowlers were a handful in Barbados, hitting
the Zimbabwe batsmen several times with short deliveries. To their
credit, the visitors did not back away but the quicks could easily have
taken more than the seven wickets they managed between the three of
them. Whether all three of them play in Roseau or not, they will come
hard at Zimbabwe once again.
The tourists' captain Brendan Taylor has had scores on this trip
of 8, 0 & 39 in the ODIs, 0 & 4 in the Twenty20s, 20 & 20 in
the three-day tour match, and 26 & 6 in the Barbados Test. On the
rare occasion he's got off to a start, he has not been able to convert
it into anything substantial. The way he fell to Shillingford in the
second innings in Barbados, stepping out early on, stopping midway, and
nudging to forward short leg, showed confusion. He has one last chance
to salvage something from a horror tour.
Team news
Barring injuries, the only decision for West Indies to make would be
whether to include an additional spinner at the expense of the third
fast bowler.
West Indies (probable) 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Kieran Powell, 3 Darren
Bravo, 4 Marlon Samuels, 5 Shivnarine Chanderpaul, 6 Denesh Ramdin (wk),
7 Darren Sammy (capt), 8 and 9 Shannon Gabriel/Tino Best/Veerasammy
Permaul, 10 Kemar Roach, 11 Shane Shillingford
Will Zimbabwe persist with Cremer? Or will they bring in the steadier
offspin of Prosper Utseya, with so many left-handers in the West Indies
top six? Will they tinker with the batting?
Zimbabwe (possible) 1 Tino Mawoyo, 2 Vusi Sibanda, 3 Hamilton
Masakadza, 4 Brendan Taylor (capt), 5 Craig Ervine, 6 Malcolm
Waller/Sean Williams, 7 Regis Chakabva (wk), 8 Prosper Utseya, 9 Ray
Price, 10 Kyle Jarvis, 11 Tendai Chatara
Stats and trivia
- This will be the third Test to be played at Windsor Park
- In the last two years, West Indies have had only five fifty-plus opening partnerships
Quotes
"So far we have played five specialist batsmen and four specialist bowlers and we are looking to continue in that way."
Darren Sammy
Darren Sammy
Abhishek Purohit is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
Feeds: Abhishek Purohit
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