India vs West Indies 2018 ODI Series - Mid series review

Before the start of the series, one of the wish list was that this series will closely contested than Test series. Contest so far is lot better than expected, and West Indies despite missing some of their stalwarts has exceedingly well and done even better than India. In fact at this stage I feel Windies are more well rounded side than India on following accounts,
1) Their openers have given better start compared to famed India openers
2) Their number 3 may not have scored as many centuries as Virat Kohli, but has been solid and almost them won them 2nd ODI and was significantly responsible for 3rd ODI victory
3) Middle order is pretty is strong than India with Hetmyer playing good attacking innings in all 3 ODI and Indian bowlers are clueless bowling to him. It is more of him getting out than our bowling getting him out
4) Lower middle order and tail end is very strong than India - as evident in all the 3 ODI
Indian tail starts from number 7/8, while Windies number 10 also scores decent 20

India have a plenty of problem in hand and is more magnified because of missing all-rounders Hardik Pandya and Kedhar Jadhav.

Let us look at the performance so far by individuals.

Rohit Sharma - Played well in first ODI and sub-subsequent ODI's got out early. Difference between Legend vs Great batsmen. These 3 matches have shown why Rohit cannot become legend while Virat can. Rohit seems to get satisfied with 1 or 2 hundreds in a series,  while Virat wants to continue to do well for team despite however hard it is stay there at the wicket and score runs

Shikar Dhawan - After decent performance in Asia Cup, got into the rott again. Frustrating them Dhawan is he gets out in similar fashion and not seems keen to learn from previous mistakes. Dhawan can be easily taken out through off spinner and if the weakness continues into WC, then India needs to think about new opener for WC

Virat Kohli - there is nothing to review. Simply we can say Great !, Great !, Great !

Ambati Raydu - Initially before the start of the series I was preferring Manish Pandey over Raydu. But so far in the series Raydu has done very well and seems like settling very well at number 4. He is good against spinners which is what is required in the middle overs and also decent against fast bowlers. If we can improve his fielding, he will become good asset for India in WC

Rishabh Pant - He got chance to bat in 2nd and 3rd ODI, did play small cameos and showed us what he is capable of. But both the times got out to loose shots, which he needs to improve. His ground fielding is not great, but then his primary skill is wicket keeping. so sooner or later he will move into that role, and he is definitely a player worth investing and groomed for the long run

M.S Dhoni - Continues to be good Wicket keeper specially for spinner (which what we will miss once Rishabh become full time keeper for India), but is other skill batting is going down drastically. He has been dropper from latest T20 teams, but do not think selectors and team management will be bold enough to drop him from ODI team so close to the WC. But do not see his batting getting improved - so he has become big liability for India while batting, while he is asset during fielding due to his keeping and passing on experience to bowlers.

Ravindra Jadeja - Showed Asia cup performance was pretty much to nature of wickets in Dubai. In flat tracks in India and the ones we will encounter in Aus, New Zealand, and during WC in England - he will not help much. So once Hardik is fit, this all-rounder slot will got to Hardik

Kuldeep Yadav - Bowled well in patches. Going for lot of runs due to incosistent bowling, but very much capable or taking wickets in the middle period and creating impact on the match

Y Chahal - After good performance in first match, other 2 ODI has not bowled that well, Seems like batsmen are picking him well, in that case India will need to seriously consider some off-spin talent as backup. He specially is very against left handed batsmen many of the teams like Windies, England, Aus have lot of left handers in the middle order. So Chahal will be weak against them

Mohamed Shammi - Was expensive in the first ODI, but bowled very well in 2nd ODI including lot of yorkers. Rested for rest of the ODI series. Definitely my choice to get into the team as 3rd seamer

Umesh Yadav - Played first two ODI, and was expensive. He has good yorkers, but does not seem to have confidence to bowl them consistently. Still I feel he is better choice as 4th seamer in this squad compared to talent we have outside the team

Khaleel Ahmed Played first and 3rd ODI, bot the times has been expensive. Need to still go through first class grind before becomes long term option for India ODI

Jasprit Bumarh - No 1 bowler for India in ODI, and now probably number 1 bowler across formats. Nothing else to add :)

Bhuvi - Bhuvi is struggling in ODI setup since almost 1 year. He did not had a good outing during ODI series in South Africa, neither in England. In Asia Cup also - he did well only in one match. He seems to struggle once the batsmen start attacking him and in slog overs do not seem to have great control. He needs to work hard from now till WC to improve his death over bowling to regain the number 1 death bowling attack.

India vs West Indies 2018 ODI Series Preview

So as it gets nearer to 2019 ODI World Cup to be held in England, every ODI series, every ODI match becomes important.
At this stage based on current form England the number one ODI team is the favorite team to win the Cup for multiple reasons. 1) The all-round depth they have in terms of bowling and batting. They have 6-7 bowlers who can easily bowl quota of overs in a given match. 2) Their bowling line-up now has good mix of both Fast and spin bowlers 3) Their ODI death bowler are probably are the best in business along side India line up 4) Their middle order and lower middle lower order batting is the strongest

Along side England if one were to look for favorites - India probably gets tagged on that along with Bangladesh. Yes Bangladesh because of the way they have performed since the 2015 World cup and their performance can be reviewed in just concluded Asia Cup where they performed admirably well despite missing their top ranked players.

Now coming to this India vs West Indies ODI Series, it is expected for India to win this series. Windies are the champions of T20 format, but for ODI series - they are missing their some of the key players like Chris Gayle, Bravo, Russel, Pollard, Sunil Narine. So their batting line up mostly resembles what they had in test line-up. Since all these ODI's are D/N and held in winter, expect some matches to be effected by Dew despite early start at 1.30 PM IST. So if the Windies chase in some of these ODI - we can expect them to cause upset. India is also missing their seam bowler all-rounder and first choice seamers for this series (at least in the line up for first 2 ODI).

So let us look at what India will be trying to achieve in this series to fine tuning the squad for the World cup.

Top three batsmen are pretty much settled for India team, and only we need to find a backup opener. At this stage backup opener seems to be KL Rahul, But he is not getting much game time to grab that spot. I have seen India always getting to back to Ajinkya Rahane for that spot when ever that need has raised in the past. Ideally India test out KL Rahul some time in this series for backup opener slot.

Middle order and lower middle order is the biggest problem area of India, and compared to England this becomes even more glaring. Despite this India is still ranked favorite aside England is because of their top order and bowling unit. But what pulls them down is the middle order.

Dhoni has been out of form for more than area, and this out of form become more glaring during chasing. Dhoni's inability to rotate the strike is one of the major concerns. Unlike in the past, he seems to now also lost the ability to accelerate in the later stage to make-up for the slow strike rate in the earlier part of his innings. But he will continue to be there in World cup squad because of his experience and not because of his current batting form.

Kedhar Jadhav is another assure middle order spot for now - again not because of his batting, but due to his bowling :). 

Ambati Raydu is being tried for number 4 slot - but I am not convinced with his ability specially while chasing. He has come back to team based on his performance in IPL this year. But in Asia Cup, it showed again that he cannot translate his IPL performance to international level. Ideally I would have liked Manish Pandey to be played in this sport. Manish Pandey also adds great value to the team because of electric fielding.

Due to Dhoni's continue poor form and inability of Dinesh Karthick to grab that spot during the Asia Cup, India has gone to Rishabh Pant to give much impetus needed to their middle order. Rishabh Pant based on his IPL performance and his recent Test performance, certainly looks the good candidate to provide that much need boost in the middle order. But Rishabh also seems to not good in strike rotation against spinner as could be seen in some of the test innings. This could become problem in the middle order period specially against off-spinners. Hope Rishabh to find a solution for this issue. No one doubts his capability to play big shots though.

Spinners select them selves at this stage, and Jadeja has come back to contention as spin bowler all-rounder. Seam bowling all-rounder that will be much needed in England will definitely be Hardik Pandya and he is yet to recover from the injury occurred during Asia cup.

Another major thing India need to find before the WC is the backup Fast bowlers - with Bhuvi and Bumrah being the first choice bowlers for that spot. I had vouched for Shami and Umesh Yadav to be those bowlers after the failure of Shardul Thakur, Siddharth Kaul to grab those spots.  Hopefully both Shami and Umesh will do well in this series to confirm their spots. Khaleel Ahmed is also excellent option (being a left armer) and this series will provide him enough chances to grab that spot.

So overall expecting this series to be lot closer than Test series, and Indian team to get still competition and also find some solutions their middle order problems.

India vs West Indies 2018 Test Series - Review

India vs West Indies 2018 series has concluded as expected with 2 - 0 result for India. Like the first test second, 2nd test held in Hyderabad too ended within 3 days. But 2nd test was much close fought than the first test and sessions were won by Windies.

On day Windies ended the day in good position after doing badly in first two sessions. This was due to good performance from Roston Chase and their skipper Jason Holder who had come back from injury. Immediately Jason holder showed why he was missed so badly in the first test. In the first innings Roston Chase scored a well made century and India also suffered a set back on the bowling front in first 30 minutes when they lost Shardul Thakur due to injury after just bowling 1.4 overs. Shardul Thakur was injured even during Asia Cup, hence did not understand the logic of giving chance to him over Mohammed Siraj who had performing credibly for India A just few weeks back.

Umesh Yadav stepped up and bowled significantly to finish with 6 wickets - one of the best fast bowling performance by Indian fast bowler in India after Javagal Srinath.

During India batting - Prithvi Shaw continued to show his talent, while there was a continued failure for KL Rahul. Kohli, Pujara got out cheaply for a change, and Ajinkya Rahane and Pant had to play good partnership to steady the ship on 2nd day ending on a strong note for India. 

At the start of the 3rd day, India were expected to get significant lead and then expected to declare at some stage, and nobody were expecting the match to finish that day. But the first session saw a complete turnaround with splendid fast bowling by Jason Holder and co resulting in India all out with only 56 runs lead. But this lead was found to be significant with Windies batting again folding within 50 overs, with no batsmen making any significant contribution. Umesh Yadav again bowled impressively to finish match honors of 10 wickets first by an Indian after Javagal Srinath.

So the result was 2- 0 as expected and both the tests ending in 3 days. Next off to ODI series and expecting the series to be lot closer than the test series.

So let us review what check boxes India ticked as they head to Australia for a much tougher series later this year.

Openers
Prithvi Shaw has grabbed the opener slot with a very good performance with all the eminent Cricket analysts also appreciating his talent and his performance.

KL Rahul continued to deceive despite his talent and time is running out fat for him. Couple of more failures in Australia could see the door shut for him soon

Middle Order
Nothing much new happened on this front. Ajinkya Rahane continued to struggle despite his 80 odd score in second test. Pujara continued to be inconsistent. So going to Aus series, batting continued to be concern

Wicket keeper
Rishabh Pant batting continued to prosper and emerging as formidable wicket keeper batsmen for India. His keeping specifically for spinners to need to improve to build confidence about his keeping

Spinners
It was expected that Indian spinners to do well on the Indian pitches as mentioned by India skipper after the 2nd test, but in 2nd test in flatter conditions they were found to be wanting. India finished well and won the test primarily because their fast bowler came up with splendid performance. So the conditions that the Indian spinners face will face in Australia is similar to the one faced in Hyderabad - much flatter conditions. On these flatter conditions Ashwin continued to be Average. Jadeja is probably more second innings bowler. Kuldeep Yadav can be attacking options, but he also leaks too many runs. So this series did not solve who are those spinner(s) who should play in the Aus conditions and expected to do both containment as well as pick wickets.

Faster bowlers
Shami played first test and was rested for 2nd test. Shami also has been picked for ODI series, which is good thing. Shami will definitely be there in the starting lineup for Aus series.

Umesh Yadav who misses out in the overseas tours despite is strong showing on Indian conditions, probably has increased his chance to be the starting eleven this time around. But need to see on whose expense, as there are other strong contenders in Ishant Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah

Next off to ODI series where India has some problems in the middle order to solve and identify their backup fast bowlers options behind Bhuvi and Bumrah.

India vs West Indies 2018 - Second Test Preview

India vs West Indies 2018 series Second test is starting in Hyderabad from tomorrow. In the first test played in Rajkot - West Indies did not offer much of resistance to India's domination in the home front. West Indies were also considerably weakened due to absence of Kermar Roach and their skipper Jason Holder. Kemar Roach is certain to join the squad, where as there is still injury concern about Jason Holder, and we will know about his status only on the morning of the Test.

India meanwhile look to consolidate their home domination, but with one eye on the upcoming tough Australia Series.  Getting into this test KL Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane are still the concerns in the batting, and India would hope that both them get a good outing. They would also love to test their reserve opener Mayank Agarwal in this test before getting into Australia, but the question is whom they can rest. At this stage seems like they need to be decide between Pujara or Kohli to rest one of among them, but do not see Indian team management taking such bold decisions.

On the bowling front, we will more likely to see continuation of 3 spinners, but on the fasts bowling front, I seriously hope that they give chance to Mohammed Siraj in place of Shami to achieve twin objectives. 1) Give rest to Shami before the all important Aus series and keep him fresh, and 2) Test out Siraj for probably the 5th spot in the Aus Series.

Result wise, India should win this Test based on the performance of Windies in the first test, but Windies did gave good fight back in 2nd Test in England Series last year after the dismal first test. So hopeful for the similar fight back from Windies to give a good test to Indian team.

India vs West Indies 2018 - First Test Review

India vs West Indies first test held in Rajkot has ended today with expected result. It was expected that India will win this test easily, but probably did not expect such meek surrender from Windies and finish the test within 3 days given the flat nature of the wicket in Rajkot.

Windies were already weakened going to the match with Kemar Roach not being available for First test, and then Skipper Jason Holder pulling out on the morning of the test due to injury. Missing out on two key players further weakened their bowling attack. India debuted the talented Prithvi Shaw - giving first go over Mayak Agarwal for the opener slow and went with 3 spinner as expected.

Review of India performance

Openers
KL Rahul, continuous to concern in the opening slot for India with poor technique for incoming ball which was exposed by Anderson and co in England. Here Shanon Gabriel exposed that in the first over itself. Rahul needs to find solution to this soon, otherwise he will be repeating his England performance again in Aus against Michel Stark and Co

Prithvi Shaw showed why his talent is getting praise from lot of legends and former cricketers. Watching innings I felt like Virender Sehwag was again batting for India. His batting style and the speed at which he was scoring the runs matched well with Sehwag style of batting. So if Shaw does pretty well in Aus against Stark and co, we would have found good opener. His backfoot based batting style definitely suited for Aus conditions

Middle Order
Pujara missed out on another hundred on home ground (after scoring one against England in 2016), Kohli scored another with walk in the park style of batting almost taking no stress. His batting was also less intense after the grueling and intense tour of England, and seemed like he was getting prepared to long innings in Australia series
Ajinkya Rahane - continued to be concern, and still struggling to play long innings

Wicket Keeper
Rishabh Pant batting continues to replicate his domestic / IPL form in international level, but his keeping is larger concerns specially against spinners. He definitely needs some help to improve on this

Fast Bowlers
Mohamed Shami was at his best although he got only very overs to bowl, and Umesh Yadav did not get much to showcase.

Spinners
Ravindra Jadeja is definitely now going in the pecking order above R Ashwin in the spin bowlers all-rounder position - his allround performance in this test with first century, good fielding and bowling seems to increasing his chances of getting into the eleven in Aus series above Ashwin

R Ashwin batting to continue to slide, and his bowling was again average and bowled well only in patches

Kuldeep Yadav - bowled below average in first innings, but bowled exceptionally well in second innings and probably cementing his position for 2nd spinner slot for Aus series.

Review of West Indies Performance

Nothing much to write on this. Shanon Gabriel bowled well only in his first spell and in the rest of the spells he was below average. Sherman Lewis - right arm fast bowled who debuted in this test looks promising. Devendra Bishoo bowled well in patches, but also went for lot of runs.

In the batting in the first innings Roston Chase played well to score a fifty, and in the second innings Kieran Powell scored a well made 80+, but with no other significant contribtion, both the innings got folder within 200 runs handing India one of the biggest wins.

Next test will be in Hyderabad from 12-October, and hope the Windies will give a much improved performance and test the Indian lineup in both batting and bowling.

India vs West Indies Test Series 2018 - Preview

West Indies is India to play short Test Series (of 2 test matches), 5 ODI and 2 T20. West Indies were in India for a Test Series in 2011 too just before India left for Australia. Hope all remember the painful drubbing (4-0) India got at the hand of Australia during that series. Before that Series Aussies were not doing well and even drew their home series 1-1 against their neighbors New Zealand. Everybody were expecting India to do well and win the series despite drubbing received (4-0) few months back in England. But what turned out to be eventually was this, was the last series for the Wall (Rahul Dravid) and VVS (Very Very Special Laxman). Also this was the series that defined Virat Kohli in the test arena after the couple of Initial failures.

Now coming to this series, India will be soon travelling to Aus for a 4 test series and this time too they got 4-1 drubbing in England. I would look at this result more positively (compared to 2011) result. India were well within a chance to win 2 test and draw the last test and the scoreline could have been totally different.  India were let down in the spinner department and if one more batsmen had played along with Kohli, India would have worn that series.

While it is expected for India to win this Windies series 2-0, I feel Windies are not a push over.
Their bowling attack is good despite Kemar Roach will be missing for the first test. Windies Squad for test series has good fast bowler in Shanon Gabriel, Jason Holder and good spin attack in Devendra Bishoo and all-rounder Roston Chase.  Their batting also look much better compared to couple of years back with decent performances in England, and home season.  Kraigg Brathwite, Shai Hope, Roston Chase, Kieran Powell, and Shane Dowrich (Wicket Keeper) are all solid player and less flamboyant. Expect them to give tough fight to India.

India will have new opening batsmen for sure, and I am propose new opening bowler too :), in my proposed lineup

My Proposed squad for this 2 test series (not just for first test) is,

Opening Batsmen
K.L Rahul
Between Mayank Agarwal and Prithvi Shaw, I would like to go with Mayank Agarwal because of his consistency and his current form

Middle Order
Selects them selves with no alternative available at number 3 and 4 - Pujara and Kohli
For number it will be Ajinkya Rahane
I would not go with 6th batsmen for this series, and would like to go with 5 bowlers, reason is we should play 3 spinners in this series. More reason given below.

Wicket Keeper
Rishabh Pant

Pace Attack
Umesh Yadav more suited for Indian pitches
I would like Mohamed Shami to be rested from the Test series and instead played in the ODI series, as I see him as backup fast bowling attack for World cup with other people so far who have been tried are below average. I would like us to try out Mohammed Siraj based on his current form and may be this might help him to stake claim for the Aus series as the 5th fast bowler and may be build his confidence to get into World cup squad too. Siraj has been tried in few T20 matches, where he has not done well and may be good performance in these test matches will give him the confidence to do well in the shorter format

Spin bowlers
I am of the opinion of that basted on performance shown by Ashwin, he has played his last test in overseas condition. He has already gone twice to Australia and has not any improvement to bowl well in overseas conditions like England, Australia, South Africa. He has had enough overseas exposure to tune his bowling for these conditions, but so far not shown any improvement in these conditions. His batting also does not that well in these conditions and his fielding is anyway below average, hence  for me Ashwin cannot be part of the spin attack in overseas condition

Ravindra Jadeja - cannot be a attacking option in overseas condition specifically in the till day 3 of the test matches. But he is much better fielder and batsmen than Ashwin in these conditions, and if given a choice will play him instead of Ashwin

Now coming to one of the key ingridients for winning overseas series and in Australia, we need good spinner who can bowl well in flat conditions, and this means we need a good leg spinner. Kuldeep Yadav fits that bill. But we have not see Kuldeep Yadav bowling 25-30 overs in a day in test matches (he  has played 3 test matches, but not bowled so many overs). So in this Windies series, I would like us to play Kuldeep and make him bowl 25-30 overs and check out is performance and prepare him to that spin option for Aussie series

Let me know your views about this squad.