Games between West Indies and Pakistan have always been close over the years and I fully expect it to be the same again at Trent Bridge for the opening match on Friday.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. We played a couple of semifinals at World Cups against them at The Oval and they were great games. Pakistan have had formidable sides, with good all-rounders, solid batters and a good bowling attack.
We certainly never took them lightly when we came up against them.
Looking at the West Indies coming into the first game, if we are consistent and play to our strengths I’m sure we can give a very good account of ourselves and surprise a few people. If someone like Chris Gayle can get away often, that will set the platform for the rest of the team.
The difference with Pakistan’s batting compared to the West Indies is they have a few players like Babar Azam, Imam-ul-Haq and Fakhar Zaman who score hundreds. They do not get in and get out, they tend to go on. That is what our players have to learn. We maybe have a few too many players who are happy to score 50 or 60, when instead they need to go on and get big scores.
The bigger question marks for both teams are in the bowling. The West Indies bowling hasn’t been as strong in the build-up to the tournament.
And when you look at Pakistan, their spin department has been good but they have struggled for wickets at the start of innings. The fast bowlers have not really been consistent enough, and in this competition you need to get early wickets. It will be really interesting against West Indies because if they don’t get any early wickets, then we could make a really big score.
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