The final ODI between England and West Indies remains nothing more than a formality for the hosts after they came out victors in the first two matches of the three-match series.
For West Indies though, Friday’s match at Headingley presents another opportunity to recover some lost pride on the tour.
Set 239 to win, England cantered to victory by eight wickets with five overs to spare. The match was played under the shadow of the tragic death of Tom Maynard, the 23-year old Surrey and England Lions player who died in a tube accident two days before the match.
While the mood remained somber throughout the match, Alastair Cook full control of some ordinary bowling that he was subjected to, scoring 112 runs while Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott played around him.
England have rested their key bowlers – Stuart Broad, Tim Bresnan and Graeme Swann – for the final match to provide them some much-needed rest ahead of the tough series against Australia.
Stuart Meaker, Chris Woakes and James Tredwell are the replacements while Jade Dernbach has been retained in the squad.
For the West Indies, Chris Gayle’s return was the biggest positive that they had and he showed his class with a quickfire half-century.
However, most of the batsmen around him failed to capitalize and it took a grinding effort from Dwayne Bravo who scored 77 to lead the team to a respectable total. The bowlers will need to lift their game though after failing to create any impact on the opposition and that has been an area of concern for Darren Sammy.
Sunil Narine has been largely ineffective and will be eager to make an impression in the final match.
The match will be played at Headingley starting at 10.45am. Lesser crowd is expected following England’s decision to rotate some of their key players. England should be favourite to win this one but West Indies can be expected to come hard at the hosts, having won nothing on the tour so far.