West Indies look to stay in the present as India build towards World Cup

Big picture

India are gearing up for a home World Cup, fine-tuning their combination with just over two months to go for the big event. West Indies will play no part in it.

While ODIs will be the most keenly followed format of international cricket over the coming weeks, West Indies may wonder what exactly they’re trying to achieve when they play their 50-overs cricket. They’ll want to pick themselves up, of course, after the shocks they suffered at the Qualifier in Zimbabwe, but pick themselves up to do what?

With no World Cup to prepare for, there’s no wider context to ODI cricket for West Indies for now. There are no World Cup Super League points to win, and there’s no threat just yet that they’ll fail to make the 2027 World Cup, which will feature 14 teams who will qualify based on their ODI rankings.

West Indies’ fans, however, would do well not to mistake the lack of a wider context for a lack of purpose. While it would be easy to look at the team’s failure to qualify for the World Cup as a sign of their unstoppable decline as a cricketing force, the reality isn’t quite so abject. The top Associate teams have made white-ball cricket more competitive now than it ever has been, and the gap between the world’s ninth-best and 13th-best ODI teams has never been narrower. It just so happens that the sport is growing when its World Cup has shrunk.

West Indies will do well, then, to put the Qualifier behind them, put the World Cup out of their minds, and stop worrying about history. Shai Hope and Brandon King shouldn’t have to feel worse about missing out on the World Cup than Brandon McMullen or Harry Tector do just because they happen to play for a team that once featured Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards.

The future of West Indies cricket is too tangled up in the sport’s economics and geopolitics for one set of players to have any real influence on it. What they can do in this series, however, is stay in the present, pay attention to the next ball, and then the one after it, and let their opponents worry about things like World Cups.

Form guide

West Indies LWLTL (last five completed ODIs, most recent first)
India LLWWW

In the spotlight

He has five ODI hundreds, including two against India, and has a 35-plus average and a 100-plus strike rate after 47 games. There aren’t too many cricketing reasons for Shimron Hetmyer not having played a 50-overs game for West Indies since July 2021; he’ll hope this fresh start will rejuvenate his career in maroon.

Despite all the competition he faces in the spin department, Kuldeep Yadav has been a constant in India’s ODI attack this year, playing eight of their nine games and picking up 15 wickets at an average of 21.13. He has an excellent record in the West Indies, where he has 11 wickets in seven games at 20.00 – among the countries and regions he has played ODIs in, he has a better average only in South Africa (13.88). Another good series here will keep him clear of Yuzvendra Chahal as India’s premier 50-overs wristspin option.

Team news

With Hetmyer and Oshane Thomas back after long absences, Gudakesh Motie, Yannic Cariah and Jayden Seales back from injury, and Jason Holder, Nicholas Pooran and Keemo Paul unavailable, West Indies will field a new-look combination as they try to make a new beginning as an ODI side.

West Indies: 1 Brandon King, 2 Kyle Mayers, 3 Keacy Carty, 4 Shai Hope (capt & wk), 5 Shimron Hetmyer, 6 Rovman Powell, 7 Romario Shepherd, 8 Kevin Sinclair, 9 Alzarri Joseph, 10 Gudakesh Motie/Yannic Cariah/Oshane Thomas, 11 Jayden Seales

India have lately adopted an ODI combination that features three allrounders: Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja and either Axar Patel or Shardul Thakur depending on whether they want to play an extra spinner or seamer. They’ll likely have that choice to make in Bridgetown, as well as two others, with Ishan Kishan and Sanju Samson competing for the wicketkeeper’s spot and a possible three-way battle for the third seamer’s role.

India: 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Suryakumar Yadav, 5 Hardik Pandya, 6 Sanju Samson/Ishan Kishan, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Axar Patel/Shardul Thakur, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Umran Malik/Jaydev Unadkat/Mukesh Kumar

Pitch and conditions

Kensington Oval hosted all three matches during West Indies’ ODI series against New Zealand in August 2022. The surfaces for that series produced first-innings totals of 190, 212 and 301, and had something in them for both seamers and spinners. While the top three wicket-takers were fast bowlers Trent Boult, Jason Holder and Tim Southee, the fingerspinners were hard to get away, with Kevin Sinclair, Akeal Hosein and Mitchell Santner finishing with economy rates below five.

That series, however, featured day-night games. All three ODIs in this series will be day games, with Indian TV audiences in mind. The weather could affect the first ODI, with a 20% chance of rain on Thursday. The forecast for the second ODI on Saturday, however, is grimmer, with a 50% chance of rain.

Stats and trivia

India have won their last eight ODIs against West Indies. Their last defeat came in Chennai back in December 2019.
Mohammed Siraj (20.72) has the best average of any India bowler to have taken at least 40 ODI wickets.
Hope is 171 runs away from becoming the 11th West Indies batter to the 5000 mark in ODIs. Rovman Powell (975) and Brandon King (969), meanwhile, are nearing the 1000 mark.
Jadeja needs nine wickets to become the seventh India bowler to reach the 200 mark in ODIs. If he gets there, he’ll become the first India player since Kapil Dev (3783 runs and 253 wickets) to complete the 2000 runs and 200 wickets double in ODIs.

Karthik Krishnaswamy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo

This article was originally published by Espncricinfo.com. Read the original article here.