Port of Spain: Following a perfect start on the West Indies tour, India would like to take the momentum from their Twenty20 victory into the five-match ODI series that begins here on Monday.
The team will continue to be led by stand-in skipper Suresh Raina in the absence of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who is resting back home along with Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan. Also missed will be Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir who are recuperating from shoulder injuries.
Raina gave a good account of himself in leading the side to a 16-run win the one-off Twenty20 on Saturday and seemed to emulate Dhoni's tactics in handling his team that outplayed the Caribbean outfit that was clearly missing Chris Gayle's all-round skills.
The man is at loggerheads with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) due to his media outbursts and watched the Twenty20 from the stands as a spectator.
Gayle's absence takes the zing out of West Indies' already brittle batting lineup and the Indians couldn't have asked for more.
"West Indies have players like Gayle missing," Raina has already pointed that out.
But facing a depleted West Indies also means the added pressure of not just winning but winning big and Raina is well aware of it.
"There's always pressure and we have done well under pressure. It's for us as players to execute the plans of the coach well. We have to play our natural game," he says.
A look at the two rival line-ups reveal that even without Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gambhir and Dhoni, the Indians have the batting to take the attack to the hosts' camp.
During the Twenty20 win, the Indians were at a precarious 56 for four by the ninth over but Subramaniam Badrinath and Rohit Sharma stayed put for 71 runs and the launch-pad helped later batsmen to plunder 72 runs in the final five overs.
India has rather unproven openers in Parthiv Patel and Shikhar Dhawan, who failed to click in T20 game, but it would take more than a Ravi Rampaul or Dwayne Bravo or Andre Russell to stop this extremely formidable array of young Indians manning the middle order.
Led by Munaf Patel, Indian pace bowling is not the strongest but the spinners spearheaded by Harbhajan Singh would be expected to do well on a track on which the ball turns quite a bit.
West Indies have a reasonable batting line-up on paper with Darren Bravo being the pick of the lot but it hasn't quite translated into enough runs on the board in recent times.
All-rounder Kieron Pollard, who wasn't included in the Twenty20 side having not played in the most recent Caribbean Twenty20 tournament, is back in the side for the first two ODIs and that would bolster the brittle line-up.
Bowling, however, would be a big concern for skipper Darren Sammy. The skipper himself did well to pick up four wickets yesterday but the rest of the attack let him down by conceding late runs.
Given these shortcomings, it would be quite a task for the West Indies to tame India, despite it being no less depleted.
SQUADS:
West Indies: Darren Sammy (c), Carlton Baugh (wk), Lendl Simmons, Kirk Edwards, Darren Bravo, Marlon Samuels, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell, Anthony Martin, Devendra Bishoo, Ravi Rampaul.
India: Suresh Raina (c), R Ashwin, S Badrinath, Harbhajan Singh (vc), Virat Kohli, Praveen Kumar, Amit Mishra, Munaf Patel, Parthiv Patel (wk), Yusuf Pathan, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Vinay Kumar, Manoj Tiwary, Shikhar Dhawan.
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