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Port of Spain: Off to a perfect start by winning the lone Twenty20 game of the tour, a second-string India will have to shift gears quickly and now brace up for an ODI battle against the depleted West Indies in a five-match series starting on Monday.
The sun came up well again on Sunday but ahead of the two ODIs to be played here, it left a very damp feeling in and around the Oval.
Here's where the West Indies will have to worry if the one-dayers begin without the fear of rain or even a thunderstorm. Skipper Darren Sammy is looking to trouble young Indian batsmen once again with a flurry of short stuff, a tactic they employed successfully during last year's T20 World Championship held here.
Sammy wants the curators to give him a pitch that assists pace and bounce but the curators have so far been dishing out flat tracks. "They did the same thing when Pakistan toured here," fumes Sammy, eyeing some kind of home advantage.
The skipper knows that pace is the only area where he can corner Indian batsmen. Bouncy tracks will nullify the visiting team's attack too. Historically, the Oval in Port of Spain has never known to be a pacer's paradise.
Sammy, however, doesn't agree with all that. As long as the pitch is hard with patches of green, there is enough help for good pace bowlers, the skipper feels. Even if the curators want to dish out that kind of surface for Sammy, it is going to be difficult for them considering the weather. While the sun is out in Trinidad, the dark clouds circling the island are never far away.
"Rain has never been predicted well here unless you're from the sea," says a local, pointing at the T20 contest between the two teams as an example. It drizzled during the toss, slightly in the initial overs and then disappeared. It was only after the match ended, three hours later, that it poured heavily again.
West Indies also need to bring in the attacking instinct that is missing in their game. After tying India down to 56-4, they let them off, failing to keep the pressure on. That is precisely where the game was lost and as Sammy explained later "we gave 20 runs too many."
Both teams skipped outdoor practice on Sunday, preferring to stay at their hotels. On Monday, the Indian team will head to the Oval again to look at how the surface has changed, if at it has, post some very heavy rain. Of course, by now, they know what plans Sammy has for them as this series goes ahead.
India are without the services of Sachin Tendulkar, regular captain MS Dhoni, openers Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir and pace spearhead Zaheer Khan, who have all been rested, in addition to the ill Yuvraj Singh.
But led by Suresh Raina, the Indians have made a confident start to the tour by easing past the hosts by 16 runs in the lone Twenty20 match yesterday.
Raina, who claims to have learnt a lot about captaincy from Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid and Dhoni, marshalled the young side well and they hardly showed any nerves while outplaying the Caribbeans desperately missing a certain Chris Gayle.
The man who set the IPL alight with his lusty hitting is a pariah in West Indies cricket right now due to his outbursts against the Board, reduced to a mere spectator at least for the first two ODIs.
Gayle's absence takes the zing out of West Indies' already brittle batting line-up and the Indians couldn't have asked for more.
"West Indies have players like Gayle missing," Raina has already pointed that out.
Team news
Dwayne Bravo, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Pollard return to the side, and so does Carlton Baugh, the wicketkeeper, replacing Andre Fletcher.
Squad from DJG Sammy (capt), CS Baugh (wk), D Bishoo, DJ Bravo, DM Bravo, KA Edwards, A Martin, KA Pollard, R Rampaul, AD Russell, MN Samuels, RR Sarwan, LMP Simmons
India played two specialist spinners and two seamers in the Twenty20, but didn't pick Ishant Sharma, Amit Mishra or Vinay Kumar. Ishant could get a go in place of either Munaf Patel or Praveen Kumar, while Mishra and Ashwin may swap places as the series goes on. The same is likely for wicketkeepers Parthiv Patel and Wriddhiman Saha.
Squad from SK Raina (capt), Harbhajan Singh, R Ashwin, S Badrinath, S Dhawan, V Kohli, P Kumar, A Mishra, MM Patel, PA Patel (wk), YK Pathan, WP Saha (wk), I Sharma, RG Sharma, MK Tiwary, R Vinay Kumar
Stats and trivia
When India and West Indies met for the first time in an ODI after the 1983 World Cup final, they played in Srinagar, Kashmir. The match was cut short due to a dust storm and bad light, and West Indies thrashed the hosts by ten wickets.
Match facts
Monday, June 6, 2011
Start time 0900 local (1300 GMT)
