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West Indies have a tough task matching the Men in Blue

By BV Swagath
for CricketFundas.com

Published: May 18, 2006

Related Link : India in West Indies

The stage is set at the Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica, where West Indies and India clash for the 1st of the five One Dayers on Thursday. The wicket is expected to aid some extra bounce and the pace bowlers must be licking their lips already with the news that the pitch is going to have a greenish look. The strategy for both the teams would be to keep their wickets intact for the slog overs and the team winning the toss might put the opposition in. All in all, the momentum is with the Indians, who have given a trashing to their opponents in their recent series and West Indies on the other hand are just regrouping under the new Captain Brian Lara. The batsmen on either side are all superb strokemakers and that should make it certain that this series is going to provide some good excitement. Adaptability is the key for this young Indian team who would be playing India’s first ever One Day International at this ground. Let’s have a look at the strengths and weakness of the two Teams.

West Indies’ Batting and Bowling

Although India might be No.3 in the ICC ODI Ratings and West Indies are placed at No.8, the visitors should expect more than a stiff fight from the likes of Gayle, Lara, Sarwan, Chanderpaul and other batsmen who would be playing for their pride. Like always the biggest threat for India would be Brian Lara. Lara may not have fired on all cylinders yet against India and at the age of 37, he would like to repair his stats against India. Luckily, India has escaped against the caning from this Prince of Trinidad on most occasions. Chris Gayle at the top is just like Virender Sehwag – absolutely dangerous whenever he is at the crease but like Sehwag doesn’t have a great technique against the moving ball. The Indian seamers do need to pick up his wicket early or they are going to be blasted on the rise like how Laksmipathy Balaji was hammered during his ODI Debut. Sarwan and Chanderpaul are reliable batsmen and they should hold the middle order in tact, of course we never know what kind of batting order the West Indies come up with. Chanderpaul might just open the innings too considering his top form at the moment. Runako Morton has been getting runs consistently in his short career with 2 hundreds and 4 fifties in the 16 innings he has played in ODIs. Marlon Samuels is a class act when he gets going but he has failed to live to his potential so far. Marlon does have a match winning century against the Indians which he had scored at Vijayawada, three seasons ago. Bravo, Smith, Baugh and Bradshaw are the useful batsmen in the lower middle order and their role would be to do the finishing act. However, the West Indies tail looks rather long and their team would depend totally on the specialist batsmen to fire.

West Indies’ bowling is definitely wafer thin and is in the hands of completely inexperienced bowlers. The bowling in general lacks the fire power and the skill to bowl the wicket taking deliveries. Fidel Edwards is quick in the air but doesn’t really have the variations to keep the batsmen guessing. Jerome Taylor, Corey Collymore and Ian Bradshaw lack the sting and are just restricting bowlers. Taylor might just prove me wrong but from whatever I had watched of him, he seriously lacks the pace and movement to trouble an International Class batting line up. Bravo is a clever One Day bowler and so is Bradshaw, they do bring in the variations to cover up for their lack of pace. The Indians would love to face the fastish off breaks from Gayle and Samuels any day. West Indies bowling would depend on bounce and if the wickets have anything of that, then their length would be short and into the rib cages of the Indian batsmen.

India’s Batting and Bowling

The Indian batting is one of the best ever batting line ups in One Day Cricket history and it certainly is despite the absence of two 10k ODI run makers Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly. The Indian batsmen have worked hard on their running between the wickets of late and that complements a lot to their strokemaking abilities. West Indies will have to run for cover during the Powerplays and the Indian batsmen plan and pace their innings very well. India also has a big advantage of being good chasers even if the target is well over 300. The confidence is there in each of the Indian batsmen may be to the exception of Kaif and Venugopal Rao. The tail enders are all useful hitters down the order except RP Singh. The one thing that the Indian batsmen would be challenged is the lively tracks and they had struggled playing on such tracks especially against South Africa in Hyderabad and Kolkata. But West Indies of late has been producing slow and dull wickets but we might get a surprise or a two this time around. Indian batsmen should also take into account that the pitches that they encounter here need the batsmen to settle down and get used to the pace of the wicket before unleashing the big shots. It may not be the case of the ball coming onto the bat often and the variations in the bounce might just be plenty for the batsmen to take care of.

Spin would dominate the Indian bowling attack and Harbhajan Singh and the injured Ramesh Powar will have a big role to play in this series. Yuvraj, Sehwag, Raina, Venugopal Rao are the other spin options for the Indians. As far as the pace bowlers are concerned, there might be lots of slower deliveries used by them and Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar have proved successful with their slower off cutters throughout their career.

Fielding wise, the Men in Blue are way ahead of the Maroons and that might prove to be clinical towards the end. As far as the Statistics go, both teams have played 78 matches in total with the West Indies winning 46 and India winning just 30. One match ended in a dramatic tie in 1992 and one game ended abruptly due to rain. In the Caribbean, India has played 15 ODIs against the West Indies and has just won 4 matches losing 11 matches. The current Indian team has the ability to make the past statistics count for absolutely nothing. Let’s hope for an exciting One Day Series and hope that both the teams play to their full potential.