West Indies
Flickr photo by James Cullen shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC 2.0) license.

West Indies series not ideal before India’s tour down under

Mustafa Ismail·
One Day International (ODI)
·1 Comment·

India are currently playing the West Indies at home – and the series looks like a cake walk for Virat Kohli’s men so far…

This has probably been the most challenging year in recent times for the Indian cricket team. Starting the year in South Africa; struggling in England during the summer, and now spending the winter down-under in Australia. There has been a lot of valid criticism on how this team are lions at home but cannot replicate that dominance in overseas conditions. With their last challenge of the year approaching, India will need to prepare appropriately so that they can improve this questionable record.

The scoreline for their past two tours does not paint the whole picture as India had some great sessions and played some quality cricket. However, they were not able to clinch the key moments and finish off the games – which eventually led to their downfall. The lower middle-order of both South Africa and England were, in particular, a thorn in India’s side and the team will need to come up with a strategy to wipe out Australia’s tail more efficiently.

To complicate matters, India will be going into the tour of Australia after playing a full-fledged series against a weakened West Indies side. Even for the limited series leg, West Indies have sent a second-string side which won’t be able to challenge India on a consistent basis. It’s unfortunate that the West Indian cricket board cannot attract the big players, who would rather play T20 leagues around the world than matches for their own country. The likes of Chris Gayle, Sunil Narine, Dwayne Bravo, and Andrea Russell would have surely added to the excitement of the India series, and they would’ve probably given India a run for their money (especially in the T20 format).

An opportunity to rest?

India are stuck with the dilemma of whether to rest players against a weakened West Indies team or give them the opportunity to gain extra confidence with some runs and wickets under their belt before a difficult tour. There are cricket experts who have also suggested that the big players should opt out of the limited-over series and play the Ranji Trophy as that will pose them a greater challenge than their current opposition.

A common mistake that the Indian team and team management made on both previous tours was that they hardly played any practice games. In South Africa, India played zero warm-up games; and in England, they played just one shortened practice game due to Ravi Shastri’s unhappiness with the pitch and quality of opposition. This proved to be costly on both instances because India’s lack of acclimatization was clearly on display during the first Tests of both tours. For the Australia tour, they will need to fit in two or three warm-up games before the first Test even if that means sending a different team for the T20 series. This could involve making the Test players practice in local conditions against local teams.

The West Indies team will not pose India a challenge in any format the way that Australia will in the winter. This will be a cause for concern as India don’t want another overseas failure in 2018. The first Test against the West Indies was wrapped up in only three days – and although it was a brilliant performance from the home side, it’s not the ideal preparation. Australia, on the other hand, are battling Pakistan in tough conditions in the UAE. Despite playing without Warner and Smith, they will come out of the series a stronger team and will have gained from the experience against a tough Pakistan team.