Tripped by a trio of India ‘A’ spinners in the first official warm-up at the Brabourne on Friday, the West Indies will try and gather its wits to score against them in the second and final practice match at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday.
The 50-over match will be played under lights and it will also give a first opportunity for the visitor to mentally prepare to take the field without Sunil Narine, who was ejected from the Champions League Twenty20, including the final, after two sets of umpires reported him for suspect action.
Fearing the same fate, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) withdrew Narine from the touring team for the five-match ODI series, one Twenty20 International and three-match Test series. Left-arm spinner Sulieman Benn has replaced Sunil Narine.
The home team coached by Lalchand Rajput took control of the first match once skipper Manoj Tiwary introduced leg-spinner Amit Mishra in the 11th over. Unmukt Chand is making the most of every opportunity with India ‘A’. “I am focused on my own batting. I really want to improve and not think much about what is going to happen or if I am going to get selected or not.
“It is more important that I go out and score in every match and get better with each innings,” said Unmukt.
For the Windies, allrounder Marlon Samuels scored a fluent half-century in the first warm-up after opener Lendl Simmons retired because of an acute back ailment.
Clearly the likes of Leon Johnson, Simmons, Bravo, Denesh Ramdin and Kieron Pollard would hope to fine tune their batting against a determined India ‘A’ bowling before leaving for Kochi.
Dwayne Bravo and Dwayne Smith (CSK) and Andre Russell (KKR) are likely to join the team at Kochi on Monday.
The West Indies has selected Jermaine Blackwood as cover for Simmons.
