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London: West Indies will return to the scene of their Champions Trophy final win over England nine years ago when they face Pakistan in their 2013 tournament opener at The Oval on Friday.
Both sides boast an array of talented, if not always consistent, match-winners with West Indies fielding hard-hitting batsmen such as Chris Gayle and Johnson Charles, while Pakistan's attack features star off-spinner Saeed Ajmal.
Left-handed opener Gayle, 33, played for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the recent IPL and caused worldwide headlines with the fastest-ever Twenty20 century, taking just 30 balls to reach three figures against Pune Warriors.
Gayle struck an astonishing 17 sixes and 13 fours on his way to an unbeaten 175 from 66 balls.
But it was leading wicket take in IPL and captain Dwayne Bravo (71), Johnson Charles (58) and Ramnaresh Sarwan (55) provided the bulk of the West Indies' runs in their recent warm-up win over Sri Lanka that followed defeat in a practice match against Champions Trophy holders Australia.
For Pakistan, tomorrow fixture will be their first competitive match in England since their scandal-hit tour of 2010 which eventually saw then Test captain Salman Butt and seamers Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif all banned and jailed after being caught up in a newspaper spot-fixing sting operation.
It was at The Oval too, in 2006, that Pakistan became the first side in Test history to forfeit a match after they refused to take the field after they were penalised five runs for ball-tampering -- a decision that was to cost Australia's Darrell Hair his career as a top-flight international umpire.
A new-look side under veteran captain Misbah-ul-Haq showed their class with a six-wicket warm-up win over Group B rivals South Africa at The Oval on Monday.
Misbah said the side had gained from their recent two-match ODI series in similar conditions in Ireland.
Ajmal has the ability to confound any batsman on his day and Misbah said: "Everybody knows that he's one of the best spinners in the world.
It is asking a lot of Friday's encounter to hit similar heights but with both Pakistan and the West Indies the joy and often the frustration is that fans can never be quite sure what they will get.
Teams from
Pakistan: Misbah-ul-Haq (Captain), Abdur Rehman, Asad Ali, Asad Shafiq, Ehsan Adil, Imran Farhat, Junaid Khan, Kamran Akmal (wk), Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Irfan, Nasir Jamshed, Saeed Ajmal, Shoaib Malik, Umar Amin and Wahab Riaz
West Indies: Dwayne Bravo (Captain), Denesh Ramdin (vc & wk), Tino Best, Darren Bravo, Johnson Charles, Chris Gayle, Jason Holder, Kieron Pollard, Marlon Samuels, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Devon Smith (wk), Sunil Narine, Ravi Rampaul, Kemar Roach and Darren Sammy
Match facts
Friday June 7, 2013
Start time 10.30am local (0930 GMT, 1430 PKT)
