A short break from the longest and oldest format of cricket made India the heavy favourite at the Asia Cup. They did the business wonderfully, but the players really had just a day or two to celebrate it before the coaching staff and a few multi-format players had to make a rapid switch. Test cricket beckons again for India down in a must-win two-Test series against the visiting West Indies, and there is a growing sense of desperation to bag those wins in their first home series after that infamous whitewashing at the enemy’s hands, New Zealand, last year.
Since that very damaging series, a lot has happened: India have toured Australia and England twice in full five-match series, with the latter also seeing the rise of Shubman Gill as a full-time captain and signaling the start of a new era. This also saw the retirement of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, and R Ashwin from the format. The old guards were out. Hence, this is the first home series to take place after such momentous retirements, giving this series a deeply sentimental undertone beyond just the redemption arc for the Test team.
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Playing XIs for India vs West Indies 1st Test
IND XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (c), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
WI XI: Tagenarine Chanderpaul, John Campbell, Alick Athanaze, Brandon King, Shai Hope (wk), Roston Chase (c), Justin Greaves, Jomel Warrican, Khary Pierre, Johann Layne, Jayden Seales
The West Indies come to visit, trying to find some modern identity in Test cricket. Changing and chopping is the name of the game for the team, a couple of injuries and some selection calls are no exception to this. Roston Chase will lead a lean and hungry Windies squad who are a rung below India, but will still take heart from their own scrappy performances throughout the year, and India’s recent vulnerability. The two teams have been on the sidelines in the longer format of the game for quite some time now, as Windies failed to qualify into the Champions trophy and that is a team hungry to showcase that they still belong at this level.
Starting off in Ahmedabad, day one gets going with Gandhi Jayanti and Dussehra on 8th October, having kicked off the first of two games. India want to have testing conditions that challenge not only their visitors but themselves as well, a condition that will perhaps bring seamers into it as they look to get experience behind their pace battery to away from Jasprit Bumrah, who cannot be and should not be expected to carry that workload on his own.
There will be no Rishabh Pant for India, as the wicketkeeper continues his rehab for the injury, allowing Dhruv Jurel to step into his shoes.
A new chapter begins for India in Test matches on its own soil with winning being its prerequisite, some sort of cohesion must be there in this performance as the firm Gill-Gambhir want to prove that they can make this land a fortress for themselves again.
