India vs West Indies
The ODI squad for the West Indies tour has been announced as follows – Suresh Raina (capt), R Ashwin, S Badrinath, Harbhajan Singh (vc), Virat Kohli, Praveen Kumar, Amit Mishra, Munaf Patel, Parthiv Patel (wk), Yusuf Pathan,Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Vinay Kumar, Manoj Tiwary and Shikhar Dhawan. There are chances that one may actually mistake this team for being the ‘A’ team. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The above team is being sent as the Indian Team to win in the Caribbean.
Read Also: India Tour Of West Indies 2011 – Complete Schedule
Over the past few years, the regular names of Indian cricket like Dravid, Kumble, Ganguly, and many more have slowly phased out. This means that the Indian cricket has to move on now and relay on the youngsters. The other names like Yuvraj Singh, Virender Shewag, Ghambir Ghambir and Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan will all be missing the tour.
This squad has a lot of new faces and they need exposure to the International level of competition and this tour of the West Indies provides just the right platform for them. To be honest to ourselves, we should not expect great wins form our team in this tour, however, we can expect that the games and matches these guys play on this tour will develop their attitude and temperament which someday in the future will benefit us in a tight match. This tour is more like a development program for these new faces and to test if they are actually worthy of the Indian cap.
It feels like Indian cricket is making a new start after its historic World Cup win. With a young team under a new coach, Duncan Fletcher, the team formation, the combinations, the strategies and the game plan, everything will have to be formed again afresh. It will be a real challenge for this Indian squad to play the West Indies in their own backyard, without the big guns. To top it off, the Windies will have the momentum going from their Test series win again Pakistan, just last month.
Tags: Caribbean, Cricket, Duncan Fletcher, India, Indian Cricket, ODI Cricket, ODI Squad, West Indies
