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Sports, Cricket

West Indies will be high on confidence


Bangladeshpost
Published : 14 Dec 2019 07:50 PM | Updated : 26 Aug 2020 01:49 PM

India and West Indies play for now at a time where teams have already started preparing for the T20 World Cup in Australia next year and at a time where there is a visible amount of excitement surrounding the Test Championship. The fact that India only had an optional practice session 24 hours before the game tells you something. A washout or a game with regular rain interventions might not help matters as well. 

The pitch was under the covers for a major duration in the last 48 hours and even though the forecast for Sunday gives hope, one can never take the weather for granted in this part of the world in December.

On a personal front, this could well turn out to be a contextual series for a few players in that Indian squad. KL Rahul appears to be rejuvenated and Shikhar Dhawan's absence will give him an opportunity to present the selectors a huge headache by the time India play their next 50-over series. Rishabh Pant will look to shut his critics once and for all and Kedar Jadhav be keen to come up with a match-winning performance. The 34-year-old is in the mix only in the ODI format and one bad series might fetch him the boot.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar's injury gives a chance for Deepak Chahar to rubberstamp his white-ball credentials and it will be interesting to see what India do with Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav. Will Chennai's slow nature prompt Virat Kohli to play them both? And if that does happen, West Indies will have their task cut out. Despite not being anywhere closer to being favourites for the series, West Indies will be high on confidence especially the series win over Afghanistan that saw them handle spin with success.

They have an exciting bunch of young batsmen in their ranks but like their assistant coach pointed out two days ahead of the series, the likes of Shimron Hetmyer, Shai Hope and Nicholas Pooran will have to take a cue from the likes of Kohli and Rohit Sharma in order to raise their game. And if the West Indies bowling attack can manage to keep those two big guns quiet on the day, that Indian middle order will be tested.