- Sep 27, 2014
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Last Twenty20 International series of the decade. Begins 12:30am AEDT tonight.
You look at the ICC T20I rankings and wonder, how the mighty have fallen. The reigning champions of the T20 World Cup enter the three-match series ranked tenth. But rankings mean very little in this format and as is the case after every Caribbean Premier League, West Indies have an exciting bunch of players to try out in the lead up to next year's T20 World Cup.
There's Fabian Allen, the allrounder who is expected to fill in for Andre Russell in the XI. Then there's Brandon King, the highest scorer of CPL 2019. And finally, there's Hayden Walsh Jr, who will be determined to show that he made the right call by switching allegiances from USA to West Indies. The return of the experienced Lendl Simmons boosts their batting too.
There's also the fact that these youngsters are playing a T20I series in India that starts just a fortnight before the IPL auction. There will be plenty of eyeballs on them. The likes of Oshane Thomas, Shimron Hetmyer and Nicholas Pooran went for big bucks last year, and the opportunity to impress looms large for some others.
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Since Sanju Samson replaced the injured Dhawan in the squad, he could be the second opener - instead of KL Rahul - beside Rohit Sharma. The other speculation is whether India play both wristspinners or choose multiple allrounders. India cannot ignore Pandey's form for too long either. He scored heavily in Karnataka's recent defense of their domestic T20 title. Although Mohammad Shami is part of the squad, he may be rested for the opener after a heavy workload in India's home Tests.
India: (possible) 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 KL Rahul, 3 Virat Kohli (capt.), 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 Manish Pandey, 6 Rishabh Pant (wk.), 7 Shivam Dube, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 Yuzvendra Chahal, 10 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 11 Deepak Chahar
Pooran's absence in the first match hurts West Indies' depth with the bat, and so they may play an extra allrounder. That could be Keemo Paul, unless they want to go with a third spinner in Khary Pierre.
West Indies: (possible) 1 Evin Lewis, 2 Lendl Simmons, 3 Brandon King, 4 Shimron Hetmyer, 5 Kieron Pollard (capt.), 6 Denesh Ramdin (wk.), 7 Jason Holder 8 Khary Pierre/Keemo Paul, 9 Fabian Allen, 10 Hayden Walsh Jr, 11 Sheldon Cottrell
Opportunities abound for India, West Indies as T20 World Cup emerges in the distance
WI in IND 2019/20 India vs West Indies Match Preview: An IPL auction also looms as youngsters from both sides look to establish themselves in three-match series
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