England and West Indies play their first match of the T20 WC on Saturday in Dubai. Both teams look strong on paper. Eoin Morgan, England's captain won the toss and chose to bowl first.

The pitch at Dubai is dry and has offered a lot more to seamers than it did to the spinners. Batsmen will get full reward if they keep hitting the middle of the bat.

Both these teams have previously won the T20 World Cup. England won in 2010 while West Indies won twice in 2012 and 2016. Both these teams are heavily dependent on their power hitters.

England are playing an extra batsman in the team in the form of Moeen Ali. Looks like the English team is banking on its all-rounders to give a stellar performance. On the other hand, WI is a team of a lot of all-rounders. Dwayne Bravo will walk in at number 8 in the lineup, this shows how deep the Windies bat.

The Universe Boss, Chris Gayle hasn't been in the best of form but he is a T20 specialist and if he goes going, then it would be difficult to stop the juggernaut.

At the toss, Kieron Pollard said, "We have an all-round team. Just a matter of us coming together and playing. Chris Gayle, legend for us. He has been around for 20 odd years. He has done a lot for west Indies in all three formats."

England Playing XI: Jos Buttler (wk), Jason Roy, Dawid Malan, Eoin Morgan (c), Jonny Bairstow, Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Chris Jordan, Adil Rashid, Tymal Mills

West Indies Playing XI: Evin Lewis, Lendl Simmons, Chris Gayle, Shimron Hetmyer, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Kieron Pollard (c), Andre Russell, Dwayne Bravo, Akeal Hosein, Obed McCoy, Ravi Rampaul

22:04 PM (IST) • 23 Oct 2021