Star-studded India eye victorious start against West Indies in the opening ODI of three-match series

After a successful outing in the Test series where India got the better of West Indies, the two teams are all set to duke it out in the upcoming ODIs that would feature quite a few star players, while the objectives would be entirely different. For India, they will be using this series as a preparatory chapter for the upcoming cricket World Cup while West Indies would be hoping to start afresh after crashing out of the quadrennial extravaganza for the first time since its inception.

India played their last ODI in March when they fell to a series defeat against Australia despite surging ahead in the opening fixture of the series after braving an early scare. However, things only went downhill from thereon as the visitors strengthened their grasp on the series while the Indian batters could barely stitch together a string shard of resistance as Australia rammed through.

However, with four months between the last series and the current one, India have had time to prepare for this upcoming tour and will love to replicate what they pulled off in 2022, when the Men in Blue demolished the Islanders without any mercy whatsoever. With the ODI World Cup coming up, India will certainly want to more than just test the hosts, and in the process also get close to finalizing their best playing XI before heading into the global event. 

West Indies, on the contrary, will be hopeful of a fresh new beginning after a shambolic outing in the World Cup qualifier where they crashed out of the tournament after suffering hefty blows against Sri Lanka, Scotland, Netherlands and Zimbabwe. Despite getting off to a decent start, defeating the United States and Nepal in their two opening fixtures, the side’s skeleton was shortly exposed with Zimbabwe being the first team to start piling misery on West Indies.

This is going to be a fascinating match-up of two sides who will be hopeful of proving their point as a glistening chapter of cricketing rivalry awaits us all.

Ground Watch:

This is a ground that time and time again has favoured the fast bowlers because of the steep lateral movement and some additional bounce off-setting the willow-wielders. A total of 49 ODI matches have so far been played in the venue that has witnessed 22 being won batting first while 25 being won chasing. The average first innings score is a modest 229 while it drops down steeply to an alarming 199 in the second.

Head to head:

Matches played: 139

West Indies: 63

India: 70

Match Details:

Match: West Indies vs India

Venue: Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados

Date: 27th July, 2023

Time: 7:00 PM IST

Squads:

West Indies:

Shai Hope (c), Rovman Powell (vc), Alick Athanaze, Kyle Mayers, Yannic Cariah, Keacy Carty, Dominic Drakes, Shimron Hetmyer, Alzarri Joseph, Brandon King, Gudakesh Motie, Romario Shepherd, Kevin Sinclair, Oshane Thomas, Jayden Seales

India:

Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Ishan Kishan (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Shardul Thakur, Umran Malik.