India opt to bowl v West Indies (43 overs a side)
A shortened game, together with a fresh pitch, was the primary reason why India captain Virat Kohli chose to field in the opening ODI against West Indies in Providence. The plan for India, according to Kohli at the toss, was to “tick boxes” and “begin the series well.”
For West Indies captain Jason Holder, this ODI series represented “a fresh start” after a middling World Cup campaign. He admitted that he would’ve preferred fielding too.
India entered the match with two left-arm spinners in Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav, while Shreyas Iyer found a place in the XI too. The players missing out were Yuzvendra Chahal, Navdeep Saini, KL Rahul and Manish Pandey.
West Indies left out the bowling allrounder Keemo Paul, fast bowler Oshane Thomas and top-order batsman John Campbell. Seeing that they’ll be batting, a lot of attention might be on Chris Gayle, who is 11 runs short of beating Brian Lara and becoming the West Indian with the most runs in ODI cricket.
The toss took place 90 minutes after the scheduled start of the game, which meant a total of 14 overs were lost. But by the time the coin went up, the sun was out and the skies were clear.
West Indies: 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Evin Lewis, 3 Shai Hope (wk), 4 Shimron Hetmyer, 5 Nicholas Pooran, 6 Roston Chase, 7 Jason Holder (capt), 8 Fabian Allen, 9 Carlos Brathwaite, 10 Kemar Roach, 11 Sheldon Cottrell
India: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 Kedar Jadhav, 6 Rishabh Pant (wk) 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 9 Mohammed Shami, 10 Khaleel Ahmed, Kuldeep Yadav