After registering a convincing seven-wicket victory over arch-rival Pakistan in World Twenty20 opener, India face again an uphill task when they take on West Indies on Sunday.
Not to forget, West Indies are the defending champions and they play well in this format. Moreover, they have warmed-up well with wins in the practice matches building up to the tournament.
With two warm-up games against Sri Lanka and England, the West Indies team management by now would have worked out the team combination they will field against India.
However, India on the other hand need to sort out few lacunas that were quite obvious not to get noticed in their last match. Firstly, it has to be the fielding that hurt India, especially the catching. At least two catches went down in the outfield when Yuvraj Singh and Bhuvneshwar Kumar grassed two chances – also the ground fielding wasn’t that great.
Prior, to the West Indies match the coaching staff needs to put in extra hours with fielding drills. Also, Dhoni has to make use of his best fielders like Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma by posting them in the outfield in death overs.
Secondly, India’s bowling in the slog overs, which has been hurting India from quite a few months. India should persist with the bowling combination of three spinners and two pacers considering the slow nature of Bangladesh pitches.
The spinners – R Ashwin, Amit Mishra and Ravindra Jadeja bowled well but Mohammad Shami and Bhuvneshwar leaked runs. Dhoni, somehow needs to manage his pacers well.
Thirdly, India’s opening combination. The opening pair of Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma looks to be struggling and India have to take a brave decision of dropping Dhawan and bring in Ajinkya Rahane or else push Rohit to the middle order.
