T20I Titans meet as India lock horns with West Indies

It was a clinical showdown from the visiting Team India as they swept the Windies clean in the three-match ODI series, with the final being a lopsided affair. The Indian bowlers were all over the Caribbean outfit, laying waste to an ailing batting unit that punched heroically above their weight in the first couple of contests.

Despite India running away with the ODI series, when it comes to the shortest format of the game, West Indies are a side equipped with all the necessary prerequisites that turns them into an inexorable juggernaut. However, the Indian cricket team have been spreading terrors across every nook and cranny of the planet and they have created momentum of their own that would make this T20 fray an explosion of two reckoning fireballs.

India will be welcoming back Rohit Sharma as a captain of the side while Jadeja will be making a comeback too after missing out on the ODI series. There will be a string of new inclusions to the squad featuring the likes of Dinesh Kartik, Hardik Pandya and Harshal Patel, a trifecta that has been making all the right noises in the shortest format of the game.

West Indies, on the contrary, have a sequence of their own detonators starring the likes of Rovman Powell, Shimron Hetmyer, Jason Holder, Romario Shepherd and Akeal Hossain. Even if one of them flickers, it can be catastrophic for any team standing at the other end.

India will be coming into this contest, high on confidence, after they vanquished the English in their last T20 series and were almost on the verge of notching up a remarkable feat of whitewashing the hosts if not for a hiccup in their batting performance that was transcended beyond the ordinary by a marauding Suryakumar Yadav.

Despite a fall to Bangladesh in the ODI series, the Islanders passed a damning verdict upon the visitors in the shortest format of the game, bagging the series 2-0. It could very well have been a whitewash as the Tigers lost 8 wickets for a paltry 105 before the Rain Gods came to their deliverance in the first T20I.

Both the sides will be putting their best foot forward as India will be hoping to extend their domination to another T20I.

Match details:

West Indies vs India 1st T20I

Brian Lara Cricket Academy, Trinidad and Tobago

29th July 2022

8:00 PM IST

Head-to-head:

Total matches: 20

India: 13

West Indies: 6

Stats:

Rohit Sharma is the leading run-scorer in the shortest format of the game in the Indo-Caribbean rivalry with 585 runs at a strike rate of 139.61.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar is the leading wicket taker in T20I cricket in the shortest format of the game against West Indies with 10 scalps.

Rohit Sharma has the highest number of wins as an Indian captain against West Indies in T20 cricket with 6 wins from 6 games.

West Indies:

Nicholas Pooran (Captain), Rovman Powell (Vice Captain), Shamarh Brooks, Dominic Drakes, Shimron Hetmyer, Jason Holder, Akeal Hosein, Alzarri Joseph, Brandon King, Kyle Mayers, Obed McCoy, Keemo Paul, Romario Shepherd, Odean Smith, Devon Thomas, Hayden Walsh Jr.

India:

Rohit Sharma (Captain), Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Shreyas Iyer, Dinesh Karthik, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, R Ashwin, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav*, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh.