Big picture – West Indies need wickets, desperately
The task for Kuldeep and Co. could be stiffer anyway, given that they are likely to be defending a total: if West Indies win the toss, they may want to bat first again; if India have the choice, they will likely want to challenge themselves and defend a total.
India WWLLW (last five completed ODIs, most recent first)
West Indies LLWLL
In the spotlight – Jayden Seales and Shubman Gill
Team news: Will Siraj get a game?
It will be unlike India to discard Auqib Nabi after just one match in which everyone travelled. He also did make a decent comeback at the death, playing a role in “restricting” West Indies to 405. There might be temptation to give Yashasvi Jaiswal a game, but it will be quite an unpopular move to rest Rohit Sharma, who now plays only ODIs and doesn’t get too many games anyway.
India (probable): 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Shubman Gill (capt), 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Ruturaj Gaikwad, 5 KL Rahul (wk), 6 Naman Dhir, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Auqib Nabi, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Gurnoor Brar, 11 Mohammed Siraj.
The result might have been similar but West Indies played a much more enterprising XI in the second game. At least on paper, they strengthened their bowling, and they should ideally retain that XI.
West Indies (probable): 1 John Campbell, 2 Keacy Carty, 3 Shai Hope (capt & wk), 4 Amir Jangoo, 5 Sherfane Rutherford, 6 Roston Chase, 7 Keemo Paul, 8 Shamar Joseph, 9 Alzarri Joseph, 10 Jayden Seales, 11 Vitel Lawes.
This will be New Chandigarh’s ODI debut, but from what we have seen in the IPL the pitch has good pace and bounce. Any assistance for bowlers can be added or removed by design, but the idea for ODIs in general is to make good batting pitches without going to the extreme that Guwahati did. The players will welcome the milder temperatures and drop in humidity just below the foothills of the Himalayas.
