West Indies coach Phil Simmons feels playing behind close doors against England will favour the visiting side when international cricket resumes next month in a "bio-secure" environment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Suspended since March due to the deadly virus, international cricket is set to be back when West Indies and England lock horns in a three-match Test series starting July 8 at Southampton.

"I don-t know if it will increase our chances, because both teams are under the same umbrella - for want of a better word," Simmons said in a video conference from the team-s training base here. "The nice part for us is that 20,000 Englishmen raving for England, and that crowd support, it-s not there for them. So that in a way will help us, so it-s good from that point of view." Besides the absence of hostile English fans, Simmons said lack of competitive cricket could also hurt the hosts in the series. "...England hasn-t come from a tour recently, and we-ve just been playing cricket at home. Because in a normal situation we would have been coming from camps and England would have been halfway through their season and the series would have been going on right now.