India’s chance to atone for World Cup
INDIA have a chance to ease their World Cup pain when they face-off against the West Indies during their tour of the Americas. Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been excluded from the ODI and T20 squads as Rishabh Pant is set to serve as firstchoice wicket-keeper and Manish Pandey as cover. The series is expected to live up to expectations with hard-hitting batsman Chris Gayle delaying his 50-overs retirement to be apart of it.
The 39-year-old was initially set to retire from One Day Internationals after the recent World Cup but back-tracked on his decision.
This will be a good chance for Gayle to set the record straight and bow out in style after he failed to impress during the recent World Cup.
As things stand, it is not known whether Dhoni plans to hang up his gloves though he has been tipped to be included in the Indian side, which will compete in the ICC World T20 Championship in Australia next year.
The Indian squad selection suggests that the nation is aiming to build a future with young stars, the likes of middle-order batsman Shreyas Iyer, swing-bowler Deepak Chahar, leg-spinner Rahul Chahar (cousin of Deepak), pace bowler Navdeep Saini and all-rounders Krunal Pandya (brother of Hardik) and Washington Sundar being included in the limited-overs side.
The tour will start in the US with a threematch T20 series.
The two sides will then do battle in three One Day Internationals and two Test matches before the tour ends on August 30. The fiveday games being part of the historical ICC World Test Championship.
The Test Championship will include the top nine Test nations (including South Africa) and will feature each nation playing a series against six out of the other eight teams.
Each team can get a maximum of 120 points from each series and the two teams with the most points will play in the final at Lords from June 10 to 14, 2021.
The Test team contains most of the familiar faces, with Mayank Agarwal, Rishabh Pant and Hanuma Vihari being the only relatively inexperienced players.
On paper, the Indians are a far more gifted side and will be expected to win the Test and ODI series, though they could face a tough challenge in the T20i series against the reigning two-time ICC World T20 Championship winners from the Caribbean.
■ The tour will start with the first T20i at Lauderhill in the US this Saturday and end after the second Test at Kingston on August 30.