India vs West Indies – 4th ODI – Preview

Ground Reality: The Beausejour cricket ground has been ironically named – at least in the context of this series. “Beau Sejour” means a fine day out in french, but with the weather being what it is, a fine day is the last thing we can expect today. The forecast is for showers again, which will probably lead to a truncated game. Look for the team winning the toss to bowl first, since that would give them a slight advantage when Messrs. Duckworth and Lewis come into play. If the weather does hold up, the pitch is expected to play true.

The Teams:
India: With their hard-fought win in the third ODI, India have at least ensured that they cannot lose the series. However, an overseas victory against the West Indies has been rare, and they will not be satisfied with a drawn series. There are still problems a plenty, not least of which has been the frustrating failures of the talented Rohit Sharma. Everybody who has any opinion in cricket are agreed on the fact that he is a supremely gifted young man – but everyone also agrees that he has done precious little to justify his talent. It’s time Rohit stepped beyond the world of T20s and contributed significantly in more demanding formats. The bowling has looked good in patches, but the other Sharma in the Indian lineup – Ishant, has almost threatened to do a Rohit, with his form and performance falling slightly from his high standards. Ishant needs to get his economy rate under control, so that on days that he doesn’t get wickets he can still contribute in some way.

West Indies: They will be disappointed with the last loss, especially since the frequent interruptions didn’t help either team much. However, the way they should look at it, is that no matter how many interruptions or delays, they need to be good enough to put it across any team. And put it across India they must, else they will lose the series by the unflattering margin of 3-1. Gayle showed glimpses of his destructive ability in his brief cameo last time, but to take the game out of India’s reach, he must look to bat for at least 15-20 overs. That would guarantee the West Indies a flying start, and with Sarwan, the Bravos and Chanderpaul to follow, it would be an extremely good platform to put up a formidable total, or chase one as the case may be. Their bowling has always tended to be a bit erratic – very good one day and average the next, so they must be hoping that after their average outing in the third ODI, its time for the bowling to come good.

Soundbytes:
“Someone like MS Dhoni can hit the ball out of the ground at any time so it was comforting knowing that we had him at the crease.” – Indian coach Gary Kirsten

We are very disappointed about the way we lost the third ODI. At the same time, we have to pick ourselves up and get ourselves ready for the final game on Sunday.” – Chris Gayle.

Weather Update: 60% chances of rain today. It’s very cloudy at the moment here at St. Lucia but luckily it’s not raining.

Teams:
West Indies (From): Chris Gayle(c), Runako Morton, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Dwayne Bravo, Darren Bravo, Denesh Ramdin(w), David Bernard, Jerome Taylor, Ravindranath Rampaul, Sulieman Benn, Lionel Baker, Narsingh Deonarine

India (From): Dinesh Karthik, Gautam Gambhir, Mahendra Singh Dhoni(w/c), Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Abhishek Nayar, Harbhajan Singh, Rudra Pratap Singh, Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Ravindra Jadeja, Subramaniam Badrinath, Praveen Kumar, Pragyan Ojha, Murali Vijay

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