India vs West Indies: Preview II

The Weapons

Interestingly, India’s latest problems have added an extra dimension of interest to this series from a cricketing point of view. There is no doubt that an in-form Indian team would probably have rolled past the West Indies in the sub-continent like conditions on offer, especially considering the wide disparity of talent that exists between the two teams in every department of the game. However, a tired outfit can boast of no such advantages, and the playing field has definitely been leveled to some extent. Nevertheless, India has some big names amongst its ranks.

The trio of RP Singh, Ishant Sharma and Ashish Nehra forms a pace attack that is far better than anything that the West Indies can put forth without Fidel Edwards. They are backed up by two quality spinners in Harbhajan and Ojha and two explosive allrounders in Ravindra Jadeja and Yusuf Pathan. The batting line-up is packed with stars who thrive on the kind of conditions that might be on offer in the West Indies, and the only question is whether they can find their usual form. If they do, there is little doubt about the outcome of this series.

Although the West Indies cannot boast of the kind of talent that India possesses, they have a few players who can hurt their visitors, and as usual they will be depending on stellar individual performances, if they are to win this series. > In fact, the first name that comes to mind is of the captain himself: Chris Gayle. Although he is generally a lazy-looking character and a reluctant captain, he can decimate any opposition single-handedly on his day. If he discover his form for even 2-3 of the 4 matches, India will have a lot to contend with. Beyond Gayle, West Indies have Sarwan and Chanderpaul, both with established pedigree and good form, and Dwayne Bravo, who showed India that he is capable of winning matches on his own on his good day. The recent form of the wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin has also been very good. The problem for the West Indies, though, is that their bowling seriously lacks teeth, especially on the flat and low Caribbean wickets. In fact, it is just the kind of attack that the Indian batsmen need to play themselves back into form.

The Conditions

The wickets in the West Indies have been slow and low in recent years, and unfortunately it doesn’t make for exciting contests between bat and ball and very exciting viewing either. Since the ball generally doesn’t come on to the bat very quickly, finding the boundaries and posting big totals becomes difficult. Whichever team can exploit the new ball better, whether with the bat or in the field, will have a significant advantage. Totals of 250-275 should be challenging to chase down.

The major advantage that India carries in the kind of conditions they are likely to face is that they have much better spinners in Ojha, Harbhajan, Yusuf Pathan, Ravindra Jadeja and even Yuvraj Singh. West Indies, with only Suleiman Benn and Chris Gayle to boast of, are not even a patch on this quality. In fact, the West Indies have a very mediocre bowling attack, on the whole, and will be heavily relying on their batsmen to provide the sting to these contests.