The first of five ODIs between India and the West Indies takes place on Sunday when the two teams meet up in Guwahati to get the series underway. Both teams will be looking to draw first blood and seize the early control of things in this match.
Although there are five ODIs to be played there is also a bigger picture that will get looked at. That might come later in the series but it is certainly something to bear in mind as we get the contests underway.
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India
There is no doubt that India go into this match as the overwhelming favourites and in many ways it is hard for them to win really. If they do win and go on and win by a decent margin they will have been expected to do just that and if they lose they will be ridiculed for a while. All they can really do is try to look good and put on a bit of a show in victory and hope that is good enough.
One thing India will be looking to do is bowl well in this match. They will need to do that anyway to make easier work of things but if they are going to progress and win the World Cup next summer then their bowling attack will need to deliver the good. It is 11 matches to win the World Cup and to ask the batsmen to deliver for that many matches is not really very fair.
West Indies
We have two different agendas for the two sides in this match. India will want to win by as big a margin as possible while West Indies will just want to be competitive. In an ideal world they will win but more than that they need to be competitive and if they can challenge and a couple of their younger players show that they can deliver at this level then that is really all that can be expected.
It might be different if the real big guns were available for West Indies but to be fair we saw in the Caribbean Premier League that they have some talent coming through the ranks. We will now see if any of them are suited to this level and if a couple of them are and they come off, and the experienced players support them well, you just never know.
Team News
India have named their 12 man squad for this match and Rishabh Pant is going to get a chance in the middle order. The one selection issue they look to have is with the last seamer where Mohammad Shami and Khaleel Ahmed are fighting for one spot.
West Indies are disadvantaged by the likes of Chris Gayle, Andre Russell and the Bravos not being around for this series. That opens the door for the likes of Shai Hope and Shimron Hetmyer to showcase their talents.
Barsapara Cricket Stadium
This will be the first ODI on this ground but there has been a T20 international here in the past. Australia won a low scoring contest on that occasion but that was all about the swing the Australian seamers got under lights. There were still a number of sixes in the match so the wicket wasn’t too bad for those who got in. This is a day-night match so dew could well be a factor late in the day.
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Betting
It doesn’t really help anyone that West Indies have not had a warm up match for this series. It would make betting so much easier if they had allowed themselves a thrash out after two wipeouts in the Test matches but that isn’t the case so I’ll ease my way into the series with just the one bet.
The boundaries line for this match is only 49.5 which looks very much on the low side for an Indian ground. Dew is set to come in during the second half of the game so the bowlers could deliver some loose balls as a result. Whether the West Indies are competitive or not here we know they’ll go after the bowling with the bat. You would expect India to look to dominate the bowling when they have the bat in their hands too so I’m prepared to take the over here. We shouldn’t really use a T20 match as an example but when 118 played 122/2 last year there were 19 fours and seven sixes so the ground isn’t the biggest. That line can be covered.
Tips
WON – Back Over 49.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
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