IND vs WI, 1st T20I: Full-strength Men In Blue eye ODI encore in T20s

Tarouba (Port of Spain): A full-strength Indian team in all its might will be looking to overwhelm West Indies in its bid to record a second successive clean sweep in the three-match T20I series starting Friday. With less than three months left for the T20 World Cup, skipper Rohit Sharma and coach Rahul Dravid will […]

Tarouba (Port of Spain): A full-strength Indian team in all its might will be looking to overwhelm West Indies in its bid to record a second successive clean sweep in the three-match T20I series starting Friday.

With less than three months left for the T20 World Cup, skipper Rohit Sharma and coach Rahul Dravid will get around 16 games (5 vs WI, 5 in Asia Cup (if India play final), 3 vs Australia, 3 vs South Africa) to firm up their core team that will then play unchanged going into mega event. The mere thought of a first eleven comprising Rohit, Rishabh Pant, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya and Dinesh Karthik as the five specialists batters in the top six can have an intimidating as well as debilitating effect on the opposition.

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And that too at a time when a player of Virat Kohli’s stature has been failing miserably in shortest format and doubts are being cast about his place in the playing XI. The preceding England series has shown that India’s white ball players have that imposing alpha-male like presence out there in the middle even if their best player Kohli is on the wane.

Thus the five-match series against West Indies, technically being played in three different countries (Trinidad & Tobago, St Kitts & Nevis and USA) will also give us a clear picture whether Kohli’s days of invincibility are over or not. Deepak Hooda, whatever little amount of T20Is that he has played, has shown that belongs to this level.

He has a hundred opening the innings against Ireland and in the only T20 that he played against England, he looked the part before being forced to relinquish his place to Kohli. With his tight off-breaks adding to his skill-set, at least three to four good matches in this series will certainly increase Rohit’s headache and also put Kohli under pressure when he returns for Asia Cup in the UAE.

Number three will be the only position that will be a bone of contention as far as India’s batting order is concerned going into the T20 World Cup. The other factor will be regular vice-captain KL Rahul’s return to the squad and where does one fit this prolific IPL performer although his way of constructing a T20 innings could be debated.