Cricket Preview: England vs. West Indies

On the eve of the Test Series between England and the West Indies, I'm predicting England has enough firepower to defeat their hosts.

In this series, with both teams suffering through issues, I still feel that England will get things done, despite the horror show warm-up game against the West Indies 'A' side.

In an awful bowling performance, the only bright side was Steve Harmison finding a bit of form going into the First Test by taking 4-101. The England team was missing Flintoff to spearhead the attack and Monty who found form in the other match, and the rest of the attack needs work as well.

As an England fan, it is worrying that a highly average player in Lendl Simmons hit 282. We are lucky the great Brian Lara has retired; however, with Shiv Chanderpaul still in the ranks, it is not smooth sailing for the England side.

Panesar should be selected, as he has the ability to trouble batsmen and can be a good wicket taker. Graeme Swann would be a good choice because of his one-day bowling, but at the test level he just didn't deliver the goods.

I do not believe Ryan Sidebottom should play, as he is surely majorly undercooked. He is probably better off going to work with England's academy and getting in a replacement for the Notts left-armer.

I also believe that Ian Bell should be kept in at least for the First Test, as I do not see Owais Shah as a No. 3. If Bell is to fail in the First Test, I think Pietersen may have to do a job at three in order to accommodate Shah into the lineup at four or five.

With the warmup games done, it is highly pleasing to see Pietersen being extremely ruthless, hitting 90 off 71 balls against WI 'A' and 103 against the St. Kitts & Nevis XI, with 13 fours and three sixes.

Something that does worry me as a fan is the form of Alastair Cook. Despite retiring in the second innings of the first match, he again got out for under 100 after hitting a half-century and a duck in the second match.

I think it is the time for Cook, now after being named Strauss' deputy, to start converting these 50s into big hundreds. With seven Test hundreds and only a best of 127, the hitting needs to go up into the 200s.

The lineup for the First Test should be: Strauss, Cook, Bell, KP, Collingwood, Flintoff, Prior, Broad, Harmison, Anderson, and Panesar.

I'd like to hear your thoughts.