***Official*** India in West Indies

[adharcric]

neck on the line - the revival of the Windies cricket fortunes starts HERE.

West Indies to win the test series 2-1.

ODI, don't care.

nah, india's neck is on the line too. in a way both teams are looking for a revival in test cricket. i'd say india will get it first.

[Jono]

No idea how this series will turn out at the moment, but I do believe its a very very important series for India. An away victory is what is definitely needed.

[Craig]

I would highly doubt a West Indies revival would be on the cards even if they win the Tests - look what happened last time in 2002, they won the Test series, then prompley lost to New Zealand in the Two Test series.

It would be great for the West Indies to win the series, it would do a lot for them and for worldwide cricket, but I think a series win and a sudden revival would be premature.

[quick4mindia]

Looking at India's past record against the West Indies they have the nack of finding a nemesis in each of the series. The nemesis emerges only to defy India and then goes into oblivion. India in the past have struggled to put up a show against the Windies in both forms of the game.
Few examples of nemesis (Franklin Rose......... where is he now?, Jimmie Padams, Pedro Collins, he is still playing, Ricardo Powell who was compared to Viv Richards after thrashing Indian Bowlers.)
Chanderpaul and Sarvan have always troubled the Indians and i have no reasons to believe why not this time again.
LARA would be the one to watch who perhaps does not have a very impressive record against India.
India beware of Gayle. I always believe he is a gamble that Windies would love to play against India.

The things that might go india's way are the pitches that are much benign and to the liking of the indians.
The easiest formula for Windies to win atleast the test matches would be to make hard bouncy pitches and then test indian batsmen with some chin music.

With the current form its difficult to beat India in ODIs. May be one or two freaky innings by Gayle and Powell (If he is recalled) can raise some hope for the Windies

[adharcric]

We do have a pretty solid bowling attack of Pathan, Sreesanth, Munaf, Kumble and if necessary Bhajji. I reckon the two new pacemen will do big things in the tests once again.

[Jono]

Lucky Carl Hooper isn't playing anymore. He, along with Chanderpaul obviously, tore us to pieces last time.

[quick4mindia]

We do have a pretty solid bowling attack of Pathan, Sreesanth, Munaf, Kumble and if necessary Bhajji. I reckon the two new pacemen will do big things in the tests once again.

I rate Munaf highly for his consistency, clean action, and pace. Kumble can be trum card. He looks to me as if he can perform on any sort of wickets. Bhajji needs one good match to find form. For pathan i am not sure. West indies weather does not support swing with the new ball. Haven't seen pathan doin much with the older ball. But i would say one thing. If he gets early swing then tentative west indian openers (as they always are) will find it difficult to face him.
Sreesanth needs to be more consistent and to be able to handle extra seam and movement. he often loses control after thrashing. But lots of hope on him. Foreign tours will only improve his bowling.
When i predict India struggling against the Windies i mean i doubt indian batting. It has failed against England on relatively placid pitches. Tendulkar will soon find himself in a do or die situation.
CAN INDIA AFFORD TO PLAY 5 BOWLERS IN WINDIES?

[IqbalJaved]

I rate Munaf highly for his consistency, clean action, and pace. Kumble can be trum card. He looks to me as if he can perform on any sort of wickets. Bhajji needs one good match to find form. For pathan i am not sure. West indies weather does not support swing with the new ball. Haven't seen pathan doin much with the older ball. But i would say one thing. If he gets early swing then tentative west indian openers (as they always are) will find it difficult to face him.
Sreesanth needs to be more consistent and to be able to handle extra seam and movement. he often loses control after thrashing. But lots of hope on him. Foreign tours will only improve his bowling.
When i predict India struggling against the Windies i mean i doubt indian batting. It has failed against England on relatively placid pitches. Tendulkar will soon find himself in a do or die situation.
CAN INDIA AFFORD TO PLAY 5 BOWLERS IN WINDIES?

INdia have major issues surrounding their test side:
1) Virender Sehwag has a noticeable weakness against the short ball and you can bet Bennett King would have latched onto that.
2) I'm not convinced about the other opener either Jaffer or Gambhir.
3) THe middle order looks vulnerable - Tendulkar is struggling with form and fitness and Laxman has been below par since returning from Australia in early 2004.
4) Dhoni - can his batting cut it out at test match level ? WE'll find more in the WEst Indies I guess....
5) Pathan's lack of pace -- Ok I accept Pathan was never a tearway but he was consistently around 135 km/hr in late 2004 even hitting 88 mph in the Bangalore test against Australia. What's with the 70mph rubbish now ?
6) Harbhajan ....Is the guy only capable of bowling with the SG ball and on wickets which assist him considerably ? I think have got to give serous consideration to Powar playing in the tests in the WEst Indies.
7) Pace attack -- Munaf looked impressive against England...he needs to back it up in the Caribbean. Sreesanth certainly bowls a fair few wicket taking deliveries but his spells are often liberally laced with hit me for four deliveries.
And who's the pace backup ? VRV and RP both are pretty raw and are not test class...they'd both be better off going on the India A tour to Australia.
Who else is there ? Agarkar is a proven failure at test level, Nehra and Balaji are still injured (is Nehra ever fit ??) and Zaheer has fallen out of favour with Chappell.

Not a rosy picture at all.

[Arjun]

The Indian selectors, despite so many goofy selections, have thankfully not gone back to Deep Dasgupta. His drop in Guyana cost the Indians some 233 runs, which was in a series of drops dating back to December 2001, more than four months before that match.

Two things beyond the Indian team's control are the strangely dumb TV umpires and the pitches. We can't fault Tendulkar if he's declared caught behind by Eddie Nicholls when the catch is grassed. The pitches, however, are likely to cause problems to the Indian bowlers. We saw the Indians play their three best seamers (frankly, two of them were way behind India's second spinner who didn't play in most matches) in supposedly seamer-friendly conditions. We saw them struggle. Come to think of it, even two spinners wouldn't do far better out there, and the seamers would struggle without a support act. Frankly, it doesn't matter how many batsmen play in those places, but they need to put up lots of runs since the pitches are just right for them and the bowling is not too hostile– unless we see the names Lawson, Powell and Edwards.

[Arjun]

INdia have major issues surrounding their test side:
1) Virender Sehwag has a noticeable weakness against the short ball and you can bet Bennett King would have latched onto that.
2) I'm not convinced about the other opener either Jaffer or Gambhir.
3) THe middle order looks vulnerable - Tendulkar is struggling with form and fitness and Laxman has been below par since returning from Australia in early 2004.
4) Dhoni - can his batting cut it out at test match level ? WE'll find more in the WEst Indies I guess....
5) Pathan's lack of pace -- Ok I accept Pathan was never a tearway but he was consistently around 135 km/hr in late 2004 even hitting 88 mph in the Bangalore test against Australia. What's with the 70mph rubbish now ?
6) Harbhajan ....Is the guy only capable of bowling with the SG ball and on wickets which assist him considerably ? I think have got to give serous consideration to Powar playing in the tests in the WEst Indies.
7) Pace attack -- Munaf looked impressive against England...he needs to back it up in the Caribbean. Sreesanth certainly bowls a fair few wicket taking deliveries but his spells are often liberally laced with hit me for four deliveries.
And who's the pace backup ? VRV and RP both are pretty raw and are not test class...they'd both be better off going on the India A tour to Australia.
Who else is there ? Agarkar is a proven failure at test level, Nehra and Balaji are still injured (is Nehra ever fit ??) and Zaheer has fallen out of favour with Chappell.

Not a rosy picture at all.

1. Sehwag has a Test triple hundred and an average of 53 opening the innings, against the best pace attacks in Test cricket, home and away. The pitches in West Indies are usually very flat and the bowling is not one likely to scare a top Test team. He can break out of that.
2. Both Gambhir and Jaffer are good enough for now. Gambhir is an attacking batsman and he gets along well with Sehwag, but he needs to stay out there and play a longer innings. Another option is Robin Uthappa, who will also be a regular (maybe) in ODIs. More productive than SS Das.
3. Tendulkar can snap out of this dry run, if he is fit. Dravid and Yuvraj are in good form, which they can definitely carry on to Tests. Raina is an option until Tendulkar returns.
4. Given the lack of runs from the sixth batsman– Laxman, Ganguly, Kaif or Yuvraj– Dhoni's batting isn't inadequate, given his attack power (often lacking in the Indian team) and his wicketkeeping– hopefully we won't see another Deep 'The Drop' Dasgupta there, but that was another experience. He's a freak, an instinctive attacker, so this 'Test level' condition isn't a factor, given specialist batsmen who have played for India don't seem to be Test standard.
5. That's a question bugging everyone, but Greg Chappell wipes it aside, saying he gets early breakthroughs with the movement that he gets. He's certainly no one-man army with the ball, and needs support.
6. Harbhajan has bowled well even with the Kookaburra ball away from India. He took five wickets in an innings in seamer-friendly Jamaica while the seamers struggled– make that, bowled rubbish. He is far ahead of all the seamers, and deserves to be in the top four. As for Powar, the runs he scores may get him into the side, not ahead of Harbhajan, but the non-performing sixth batsman, so this is an exception.
7. Munaf has new-ball issues, so he would be better off coming in first-change. His fitness is questionable, though he's not breaking down as often as in his debut FC season. Sreesanth is an attacking bowler whose variations and extra pace will get a few extra wickets, so the extra runs conceded are not an issue. VRV Singh and RP Singh should stay in the India A side, but RP Singh is a better ODI change seamer than a frontline pacer. Agarkar, Nehra, Balaji and Zaheer have been given enough chances, and haven't done much of note.

The Indians made some mistakes in the past back there, so if they do a few things different now, they may perform a lot better.

[DanielFullard]

Aren't Sky covering this series? I think the are covering both the West Indies series in the next month or so. I can't see anything other than an Indian Whitewash to be honest.

[quick4mindia]

Aren't Sky covering this series? I think the are covering both the West Indies series in the next month or so. I can't see anything other than an Indian Whitewash to be honest.

Its just a matter of time when sehwag tendulkar and laxman start performing all in a single match. whenever this happens the opposition just seems to be chasing the red cherry.
remember pakistan (sehwags 253 with some 48 fours) and historic 706 against australia at sydney. I have not mentioned Dravid here who is consistently among the runs.

1sehwag
2jaffer
3dravid
4tendulkar
5lax
6yuvi
7dhoni/kartik (kartik being a better keeper)
8pathan
9sreesanth
10kumble
11bhajji
12munaf
13rp
if india would like to play 5 bowlers then prob jaffer will have to sit out and dravid will open.
i sincerely belive dropping lax against england was a mistake and india payed the price.

[DanielFullard]

and india payed the price

Oh yes. They paid the price. 5-1

[quick4mindia]

Oh yes. They paid the price. 5-1

was alluding to the test series not the one dayers

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

I don't envision the West Indies winning more than 1 Test against India. The West Indies bowling has improved IMO, but still isn't good enough to show up the Indian batsmen on West Indian pitches.

I really hope that Lara can finally impose himself on India. He's done it against everyone else after all.