Toss West Indies chose to field v England
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Both captains wanted to bowl first in the final, but Darren Sammy got to choose after winning the toss © Getty Images/ICC
Darren Sammy won his tenth consecutive toss as West Indies’ T20 captain, and not surprisingly chose to send England in to bat in the World T20 final in Kolkata.
Chasing has been a successful strategy for West Indies so far in this tournament: they have batted second in every match and have lost only once, to Afghanistan in the group stage after already qualifying for the semi-finals. England’s captain Eoin Morgan freely admitted he too would have bowled first on a pitch that looked good for batting.
“It looks a really good surface,” Morgan said. “There’s a big covering of grass, which is a little bit unusual here. Normally it’s quite bare and takes turn. When there’s a covering of grass it’s usually a really good cricket wicket.”
England and West Indies both named unchanged sides, trusting the same XI that brought each team through their respective semi-finals. Whichever team wins in Kolkata, they will be the first side to win the World T20 title more than once, and for West Indies it would be a remarkable achievement given the pay dispute that preceded the tournament.
“We came into this tournament with a lot of confidence,” Sammy said. “I know not many gave us a chance. But we know what we can do…support each other, believe in each other, and today we just have to take one more step against England to win the cup.”
England 1 Jason Roy, 2 Alex Hales, 3 Joe Root, 4 Eoin Morgan (capt), 5 Ben Stokes, 6 Jos Buttler (wk), 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Chris Jordan, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 David Willey, 11 Liam Plunkett
West Indies 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Johnson Charles, 3 Marlon Samuels, 4 Lendl Simmons, 5 Denesh Ramdin (wk), 6 Dwayne Bravo, 7 Andre Russell, 8 Darren Sammy (capt), 9 Carlos Brathwaite, 10 Samuel Badree, 11 Sulieman Benn
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo