West Indies and India embark on the first of four Test matches on Thursday when they meet at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua, scene of that infamous match between England and West Indies just under a decade ago.
Much has changed since then and the wicket has bedded in and provides a decent surface with which to begin the series on. Although the series is four matches long both teams will be looking to make fast starts especially with the question marks over them so this should be a good contest.
West Indies
The West Indies go into this match with a controversial squad selection which left out the likes of Jerome Taylor and Denesh Ramdin – formerly mainstays in the side. There is also no Kemar Roach either so a near new bowling attack will be on show for the home side here.
The Windies have mastered the 20 over format in recent times and they have also made significant improvements in the 50 over game too and now their task is to show that they have done the same thing in the longest format of the game. Their batsmen will need to show a patience we are now sure they have and their bowlers will have to be attacking and aggressive.
India
Credit to the Indians not only for getting involved in a four match series but for also getting to the Caribbean in time to have a couple of warm up matches and really acclimatise to conditions. In those warm up matches most of their batsmen scored runs while their bowlers got a solid work out too.
This isn’t India’s favoured format of the game but they showed a renewed optimism for it when destroying South Africa at home at the back end of last year and now their task is to back that up away from home where winning Test matches is never an easy thing to do.
Team News
West Indies are expected to open with Rajendra Chandrika with Devendra Bishoo coming back into the side. Shannon Gabriel, Carlos Brathwaite and Miguel Cummins are set to be the seam bowlers with Shane Dowrich taking over the gloves.
India’s side looks pretty settled with just one place up for grabs in their batting line up which is between KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan to open and also whether they play a third spinner or the extra seamer. In these conditions you would think the spinner may well get the edge.
Sir Vivian Richards Stadium
This is a fairly new ground and will be hosting its fifth Test match here or sixth if you include that ill-fated game with England back in the day. West Indies are unbeaten here with a win and three draws while India will be playing red ball cricket on this ground for the first time.
Of all the grounds in the West Indies this one is probably the best for the batsmen. It isn’t the Antigua ground that Brian Charles Lara broke the world record on but the wicket does play similar to the Recreation Ground. It will be like a road early on but then the spinners especially will come into play.
Betting
I’m going easy in this first match of the series. In truth there isn’t many markets to get stuck into for this match which is a pity. I’m expecting India to go well in this series but if there is a match where the draw could be a legitimate runner then it is this one so I’ll avoid backing the tourists at odds on and head for the performance markets.
The man I’m most interested in there is Darren Bravo. His line is 88.5 but I’m not convinced that is high enough. Bravo is a wonderful batsman as he showed in the tri-nations recently and with his confidence up I’m expecting a decent match out of him here and I expect him to cover this line with the bat.
If he doesn’t manage to do that he is an excellent catcher and will be fielding around the bat for the majority of the time so he might well get batches of 10pts to help him reach the total with catches so the bat and the catching combined should see him safely to 89pts in this one.
Tips
Back D.Bravo’s Performance – Over 88.5pts for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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