WI vs IND: 2nd ODI Preview – Teams eye decisive victory after rain-hit clash

The first ODI between West Indies and India was alive for just 13 overs. The hosts scored 54 runs and lost Chris Gayle before the rain poured down to extinguish any hopes of further play. From Guyana, we now head to Port of Spain, Trinidad where both the teams will be playing out the remaining two ODIs in the mini-series.

After the 3-0 triumph in the T20I series, India will hope to continue their winning spree in the ODIs as well. The wash-out prevented them from claiming an early advantage. On the other hand, a two-match affair gives West Indies better odds of securing a drawn series.

Match Info

West Indies vs India, 2nd ODI: 11th August, Sunday

Queen’s Park Oval, Port of Spain, Trinidad (07:00 PM IST)

In five completed matches played at this venue, teams batting first have won on four occasions.

Weather Update

Hopefully, we will enjoy a full 50-over match. The chances of rain are only 20%.

Head-To-Head

Played – 128

West Indies wins – 62

India wins – 60

Tied – 2

No result – 4

Team News

West Indies

For the first ODI, West Indies had left out Oshane Thomas, Keemo Paul and John Campbell. Since only 13 overs play was possible, only three batsmen had a hit from West Indies. Gayle struggled in his ultra-slow knock of 4 from 31 balls and was dismissed the first time he tried to have a slog. The team management will be tempted to give the T20 legend another shot at breaking Brian Lara’s record. Currently, the opener is just seven runs shy of becoming the highest run-getter for Windies in ODIs. Rest of the lineup is also expected to remain the same.

India

KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Yuzvendra Chahal and Navdeep Saini graced the bench in the first ODI while Shreyas Iyer was given a much-deserved chance. Iyer is expected to bat at number four and his performance will be monitored intensely since the batting position has been India’s Achilles heel. As of now, the team has no reason to make any changes since the players had no opportunity to prove themselves in the first game.

All eyes will be on Virat Kohli. The batsman underperformed in the World Cup by his own standards and shall look to add a few centuries to his glorious ODI career. Since January 2015, Virat averages 100.25 against West Indies in 12 ODIs. In the home series against the same team, he had struck three consecutive hundreds.

Probable XI

West Indies: C Gayle, E Lewis, S Hope (wk), N Pooran, S Hetmyer, R Chase, J Holder (C), C Brathwaite, F Allen, K Roach, S Cottrell

India: S Dhawan, R Sharma, V Kohli (C), S Iyer, K Jadhav, R Pant (wk), R Jadeja, K Yadav, B Kumar, N Saini, M Shami

Stat Attack

• Virat Kohli is 88 runs away from completing 2000 ODI runs against West Indies
• Chris Gayle needs 7 more runs to go past Brian Lara to become West Indies’ highest run-getter in ODIs.