BASSETERRE, Saint Kitts and Nevis (AFP) — West Indies captain Carlos Brathwaite won the toss and put Bangladesh in to bat in the opening fixture of a three-match T20 International series at Warner Park in St Kitts today.

Play got underway after rain briefly delayed the start of the match.

Coming off a 2-1 series win in the One-Day Internationals, their first series win outside Asia in nine years, Bangladesh have included seamer Rubel Hossain at the expense of Adu Jayed in the only change to their team from their last T20I.

in nine years, Bangladesh have included seamer Rubel Hossain at the expense of Adu Jayed in the only change to their team from their last T20I.

For the West Indies, who dominated the two Tests against the Bangladeshis before being undone in the ODI’s, Andre Russell is fit again and playing after he missed the last two one-dayers with a knee injury.

Veteran opener Chris Gayle is rested while fellow-Jamaican Marlon Samuels plays his first game of this Bangladesh tour in the middle-order.

This is the first meeting between these two teams in a bi-lateral T20 series, their previous six encounters over an 11-year-period all being one-off match-ups, including two World T20 duels where honours were shared.

Incidentally, the last time they met in a T20 International was also at Warner Park, a rain-ruined fixture which ended as a no-result four years earlier.

While the West Indies are the reigning world champions in the format, their ranking has slipped drastically since the dramatic triumph over England in the 2016 final in Kolkata. Their last outing was in early April where they were comprehensively outplayed by Pakistan in three matches in Karachi. West Indies were a severely-depleted squad then as most prominent players chose not to make the trip because of security concerns.

Bangladesh’s last T20I outing before this assignment was a humiliating 3-0 sweep administered by Afghanistan in June in the northern Indian city of Dehradun.

Teams:

West Indies – Carlos Brathwaite (captain), Evin Lewis, Andre Fletcher, Marlon Samuels, Denesh Ramdin (wicketkeeper), Andre Russell, Rovman Powell, Keemo Paul, Ashley Nurse, Samuel Badree, Kesrick Williams.

Bangladesh – Shakib al Hasan (captain), Tamim Iqbal, Liton Das, Soumya Sarkar, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah, Ariful Haque, Mehidy Hasan, Mustafizur Rahman, Nazmul Islam, Rubel Hossain.

Umpires: Joel Wilson (TRI), Gregory Brathwaite (BAR)

Match Referee: Chris Broad (ENG)