India v West Indies - 1st ODI, Kochi

 

 

India v W-Indies (Micromax Cup)

Match Preview

India and West Indies get ready for another enthralling One Day International Series starting today at the Nehru Stadium, Kochi. Gone are the days where MS Dhoni and Dwayne Bravo are in same team line-up with the yellow jersey on. Now, both are busy captaining their respective International sides.

This match should result in an even contest as both teams look alike in terms of experience, exposure and temperament. West Indies look more an experienced team but that is evened out by India with the home advantage.

Key Players:

Virat Kohli should be fresh from his month long vacation and a new hair-cut. He is the key in any match India is featured. Suresh Raina is unchallenged in the limited over format scoring heaps of runs. His overall strike of 92.21 proves how devastating he could be in the middle overs. Bhuvi and Umesh Yadav are the bowlers to watch out for. Amit Mishra should be the key in the spin department as the last time these two teams met at this stadium on 21-Nov-13, West Indies folded for a meagre 211 thanks to the spin attack by Jadeja and Raina taking 3 wickets apiece. New guy Kuldeep Yadav has provided KKR with great bowling spells and got a place in the Indian team but is this enough to get a spot in the playing 11 is a question.

On the other side Jason Holder is slowly building as an all-rounder but Bravo is the best all-rounder of them all. When we see at the line-up its dominated by all-rounders including Samuels, Russell, Pollard, Sammy etc. but one pure ace batsman is Darren Bravo, he holds the key to success for West Indies to gel together and build partnerships.

• India's record at the Nehru Stadium is outstanding with a win percentage of 72.2% whereas West Indies have only played one match here where they had to face defeat.

• There have been 9 ODI matches played in total all involving India and India have won 6 out of those with a match being abandoned.

• Out of the 9 matches 4 matches have been won each by teams batting first and second respectively.

• The average first inning score in Kochi is 268 runs for the loss of 7 wickets.

• For me the captain should look to bat first in a high scoring and spin friendly track where the spinners can take care of things in the second innings with a slightly deteriorating pitch. But the weather predictions does not look favorable as there is 50% chances of thunderstorm and heavy rain.

India looks clearly a better side of the two as the W-Indies players were too busy mulling over their payment issues. Will they concentrate 100% on the match is a question. Its a issue of mental fitness.