Along with England, tournament co-hosts West Indies are the only side to win two ICC Men’s T20 World Cups in the history of the competition. Expectations are high from the Rovman Powell-led team, not just because they have the home advantage but also because the results have gone their way in the leadup to the event.

The 3-0 whitewash of South Africa was their latest triumph, but they have also defeated India and T20 World Cup defending champions England in recent months, besides garnering a win against Australia in Australia.

Skipper Powell was quietly confident ahead of the event, ready to embrace both the expectations and pressures of a home World Cup while also relishing the historic opportunity that beckons the side.

“I think it's a mixture of both [Challenge and expectation],” Powell said. “It's definitely a challenge. When you're playing in front of your home crowd, it can be good and it can be bad.

“But we're trying to look on the positive side of things and see that the fans will come out just anticipating, hoping that we'll play good cricket to entertain them.”

Powell reflected on his side’s rub of green, which has led to their elevation to the fourth spot on the ICC Men’s Team T20I Rankings prior to the event.

“And I think over the duration of the last 12 months or so, we have played some very good cricket right across the world. And such, that has improved our T20 rankings to being fourth in the world.

“It's a team that has confidence. It's a team that understands and knows how to play T20 cricket. So hopefully, during the duration of this World Cup, we can show that.”

While big-hitting strokeplay and fiery pace has been a trademark of West Indian cricket for long, the side will be heavily dependent on its tweakers for success in this edition of the tournament. Given the slow and low nature of the surfaces in the Caribbean, Windies could feature three spinners in Gudakesh Motie, Akeal Hosein and Roston Chase.

All three have impressed in recent games, and Powell had high expectations of them in the event.

“I think I am very, very pleased at this moment to see that we have three quality spinners. Not often, our West Indies team has been selected with three quality spinners. So that is something that I'm very, very excited about.

“Times may come when they may not play. But to have them at our disposal is very, very important for us.”

The co-hosts kick off their campaign against Papua New Guinea. This will be the first meeting between the two sides.

PNG skipper Assad Valla was looking forward to playing against full member nations, whom he described as “one of the powers in cricket”.

Valla’s side featured in the 2021 T20 World Cup as well but the skipper believed that PNG had a more settled squad this time around.

“I think there's more experience in the team. The preparation has been different to the last one we went to, as it was held during the COVID.

"So, we didn't play any international cricket over 12 to 18 months and just going to the World Cup. But there's no excuses as the other teams went through the same phase as well.

“So, for us I think the experience we gained from that [tournament], having a different coaching staff. and I think having a more settled team than the one we had last time, so I'm really happy [with] the squad we have assembled for this tournament.”

Both West Indies and PNG are in Group C along with New Zealand, Afghanistan and Uganda.