T20 Cricket World Cup: Gayle and Narine essential to West Indies

Write the West Indies off at your peril to win the T20 World Cup as their batting line up is full of players who can swing a game in the space of an over.

It seems as if the West Indies have more big hitters in their line up than any other nation and so they have to be respected at 6/1 to win the World Cup.

Chris Gayle leads the way at the top of the innings and T20 is clearly a format that plays to his strengths.

No boundary is seemingly too long for Gayle to hit a six and he was the first player to register a century in an Indian Premier League game.

See which players we think make up the ultimate cricketer here

Meanwhile, he was also the highest runscorer in the most recent IPL season, giving him valuable experience of sub-continental pitches.

Therefore, it is no surprise to see Gayle as short as 11/10 to score the most West Indies runs in the World Cup.

But they are able to call upon numerous other pinch hitters capable of ending an innings with a spectacular strike rate.

Dwayne Smith and Kieran Pollard are just two names, while Darren Bravo brings a bit of guile and craft rather than simply power to the batting unit.

If Gayle has an enormous role to play with the bat, then Sunil Narine must have a big tournament with the ball for West Indies to challenge.

Narine was the surprise package with the ball in the 2012 IPL season as batsmen could not pick his bowling.

Now that he is more widely known, there is a strong chance that opposition may have finally worked him out, as England did in a one-day series earlier this summer, when the spinner was largely ineffective.

But bowling only four overs rather than 10 at the World Cup, batsmen do not get as much time to settle into his rhythm, meaning Narine should be back among the wickets.

It is 1/1 that West Indies reach the latter stages of the World Cup by winning Group B, which also involves Australia and Ireland.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing