The India ‘A’ side has been as erratic as Bangalore’s weather that varies from sunshine to dark skies while the West Indies ‘A’ seems to have turned the tide. It is an interesting backdrop as the teams will now face-off in a lone Twenty20 match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Saturday.
After skipper Yuvraj Singh’s hundred set a dominant template for India ‘A’ in the opening one-dayer, the men from the Caribbean enhanced their performance in the next two contests to wrap up the series 2-1. Suddenly the host is grappling with problems while Kieran Powell’s men are upbeat.
Be it a skewed line-up that has relied excessively on Yuvraj to deliver though it also has aggressive batsmen like Robin Uthappa and Yusuf Pathan in its ranks or bowlers who have failed to restrict in the death, India ‘A’ seems to have a bigger bag of worries. An injured Mandeep Singh is a doubtful starter too.
The visitor meanwhile has warmed up gradually. Jonathan Carter and Kirk Edwards slammed tons, the fast bowlers have begun to cope with the conditions and the team no longer sports the air of a push-over. Cut to the game’s shortest version, India ‘A’ may still fancy its chances of stumping the West Indians as all it takes is a few overs of batting mayhem to nudge out any squad. But Yuvraj would be aware that the visitors too have some explosive willow-wielders.
In the third one-dayer here on Thursday, the West Indies ‘A’ scored 176 from just 39 scoring shots (29x4, 10x6) while accumulating the remaining 136 from 261 deliveries and five wides. The ability to clear the ropes, evident in the first statistic, is something that would worry the Indians while they mull over their bowling options.
The weather, true to its nature over the past fortnight, has remained damp and a steady drizzle forced Powell’s men to cancel their pre-match training session.
The squads:
India ‘A’: Yuvraj Singh (capt.), Unmukt Chand, Robin Uthappa, Baba Aparajith, Kedar Jadhav, Naman Ojha, Yusuf Pathan, Vinay Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Siddharth Kaul, Sumit Narwal, Shahbaz Nadeem, Mandeep Singh and Rahul Sharma.
West Indies ‘A’: Kieran Powell (capt.), Veerasammy Permaul, Ronsford Beaton, Nkrumah Bonner, Jonathan Carter, Sheldon Cottrell, Miguel Cummins, Narsingh Deonarine, Kirk Edwards, Andre Fletcher, Leon Johnson, Nikita Miller, Ashley Nurse, Andre Russell and Devon Thomas.