Opportunity for Bangladesh to topple hosts West Indies

The last West Indies and Bangladesh played a full-fledged tour was in 2014. Now familiar scenes of Bangladesh touring the West Indies are set for a new run.
Back then, the West Indies were, for the lack of a better expression, kingly rulers when they made light work of Bangladesh. Suppressing the team completely across formats, had they been given a free reign and a rain-affected solitary T20 encounter not had happened they would’ve completely dismantled their earnest visitors.
4 years is nearly half a decade and this interval has brought about a string of changes on both teams’ spectrum. While the West Indies are today dainty where experience is concerned but replete with a flourish of new talents, Bangladesh, who they host for a full-fledged tour- 2 Tests, 3 ODIs and 3 T20s- are on par where experience and flair of the youth is concerned.
This leads us to several questions regarding the West Indies.
Would they be missing Ravi Rampual who collected 7 wickets from just 3 ODI when they contested Bangladesh back in 2014? Is it going to be Dwayne “bowl it slow” Bravo who not only captained the ODI side but picked 6 wickets?
How badly will they miss out on the flashing blade of Darren Bravo who reached his career-best 124 in that series? Or will they desperately long for Denesh Ramdin whose bat was in the pink of health, collecting grizzlies like 169 and 74 in the ODI series, the former his highest ODI score?
Even Pollard who struck a fiery 89, his best against Bangladesh, was around to bail out his team from mortal dangers of facing a capricious side, so susceptible to burst out with a devastating brand of cricket.
In this regard, it’s not hard to fathom that Bangladesh will smell blood.
The West Indian predicament- the continuance of the same senile problem regarding key absentees Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard, Lendl Simmons, Darren Sammy and both Bravo brothers- Dwayne and Darren – will likely affect their balance even as resurgent and young names like Evin Lewis, Shai Hope, Shemron Hetmyer, Alzarri Joseph and Rovman Powell are expected to don national colors against Bangladesh.
To exacerbate Windies’ woes, Bangladesh is likely to feature 6 players from their 2014 series
Talents like- Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rehman, Anamul Haque, Imrul Kayes, Mashrafe Mortaza, Taskin Ahmed- are no longer inexperienced players. These are established campaigners in their own right whose combined efforts have often made Bangladesh’s scared opponents- Sri Lanka most recently, Pakistan (in Tests) prior to that- seem like having fallen prey to an unpredictable clique.
What’s even worse for West Indies is that in Holder and Chris Gayle- provided Gayle plays, which would be a good omen considering he might fancy giving a worn-out back some rest following the excesses of sledgehammering in the IPL- are the only 2 men who’ll be around having contested Bangladesh in 2014.
This means, there’ll be a clear tug of war between flair and inexperience on the one hand, and experience and power on the other.
Not all downhill for West Indies as yet
They are set to play Bangladesh for 3 T20s at Lauderhill, USA when in 2016, they annihilated a Virat Kohli, Kuldeep Yadav and Hardik Pandya-powered India. Should Evin Lewis look at Bangladesh’ bowling cauldron, who’ve never played at Florida, he should break into a grin, for the first of his 2 T20 hundreds came in a winning cause for his side in the same ground, familiar for offering a tantalizing harvest of runs.
The West Indies, Bangladesh would keenly note, are not any less of a batting slaughterhouse. As recently as Marc, 2018- in arguably their most productive cricketing stint thus far (in 2018) the likes of Rovman Powell, captain Holder, Shimron Hetmyer and Lewis himself collected big runs in propelling an inconsistent side to catch the bus for 2018 World Cup.
But at the same time, Holder’s men will be cautious of Bangladesh’s threat, arguably the deafening sound of which emanates from the rasp blade of Tamim and Mushfiqur, the old-guards who’ll fight fire with fire.
What’s even more interesting is that Antigua’s relatively flat deck, suited for a tonnage of runs returns after 14 years to host Bangladesh for the 1st of the 2 Tests.