After a brief tryst with white ball cricket in the UAE, the Indian team will be back playing red ball cricket starting Thursday, 4 October. The first of the two Test matches against the West Indies, or Windies, as the team from the Caribbean like to be called these days, begins at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Khanderi, Rajkot.
India are the top-ranked team in the ICC Test rankings, but they’ve had a very ordinary year by their recent high standards, and the two Test matches against the Windies present an opportunity to balance out the dismal record to some extent.
India’s Test record in 2018 is in the red because they have played the bulk of their cricket in challenging conditions overseas. However, now they are back in more familiar and comfortable surrounds at home and will look to add to their dominant home record in recent years.
India have been nearly unbeatable at home in recent years; they’ve lost just ONE Test in 27 Test matches at home since 2013.
Stage Set for Ashwin & Jadeja to Impose Themselves
The two players who have been at the forefront of India’s near impeccable record at home are Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. In 21 Test matches at home since 2015, the two finger spinners have individually picked up 130 wickets and 110 wickets respectively, while the rest of the bowlers in the team have picked up a total of 140 wickets.
Tables Have Turned
From the time India and West Indies met for the first time in 1948 until the late 1990s, Windies generally held sway over India. That was when the West Indies line-up at various points in time featured legends such as the Three Ws (Everton Weekes, Frank Worrell, Clyde Walcott), Garry Sobers, Clive Lloyd, Alvin Kallicharan, Wes Hall, Viv Richards, Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and many others.
But the balance has since shifted, and Indian teams have dominated the men from the Caribbean in recent times. Therefore Virat Kohli’s team will be expected to overpower Jason Holder’s side in the coming fortnight.
New Faces in Both Sides
There will be changes in personnel in both sides – from the line-ups they fielded in their respective last Test matches.
Eighteen-year-old Prithvi Shaw will be making his India debut. On the bowling front, India will be without the two quicks who opened the bowling in the final Test match on the tour of England; Ishant Sharma is recovering from an injury, while Jasprit Bumrah has been rested, and therefore the new ball will be shared by Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav.
India Final 12: Virat Kohli (captain), KL Rahul, Prithvi Shaw, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Shardul Thakur
Devon Smith, who was recalled to the team for the home series against Bangladesh after three years, has been overlooked, and it is therefore a certainty that the Windies will have a different opening pair too; it will probably be Kieran Powell and Kraigg Brathwaite walking out at the top of the innings. On the bowling front, the visitors will miss the services of Kemar Roach, who has had to fly back home due to a bereavement in the family. That could therefore mean a Test debut for the 22-year old Grenada pacer Sherman Lewis.
Windies’ likely XI: Kraigg Brathwaite, Kieran Powell, Shai Hope, Shimron Hetmyer, Sunil Ambris, Roston Chase, Shane Dowrich, Jason Holder, Shannon Gabriel, Devendra Bishoo, Sherman Lewi
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