Team India, which won the Test series, without losing a moment, made a plan to leave Port of Spain for Barbados on the same night as the players of Team India had already reached there for the ODI series.
But, due to the indecisive attitude of the West Indies Cricket Board, Team India's flight at 11 o'clock in the night took off at 3 o'clock in the morning the next day and leave aside the practice of the Test players, even the players of the ODI team did not do net-practice on Tuesday.
This was not the case on Wednesday. All the players of Team India shed sweat, but the best thing to see is that all the players are rarely seen together in such a happy mood.
A big reason for this is the cool style of captain Rohit Sharma. Seeing and talking about Rohit, one does not realize that he got the captaincy only a year ago and there are important tournaments like Asia Cup and then World Cup in the next few months.Winning this ODI series may not mean much to Team India and it may prove to be a mere formality, especially considering that the host team will not participate in the ODI World Cup for the first time in its 70-year history.
Just two days before the match, the Prime Minister of Barbados expressed the grief and pain of the Caribbean people in front of the West Indies team during the Sir Frank Worrell Memorial Lecture.
He regretted that only 600 tickets were sold till 48 hours before to watch the match against India.
Then he ordered his sports minister that the government should purchase as many tickets as possible and distribute them among clubs and school children so that they get a chance to get inspired by watching players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma play.
For Team India, this series will be to confirm two out of three places in the middle order between Suryakumar Yadav, Sanju Samson and Ishaan Kishan. In this, Samson will clash with Suryakumar Yadav as a pure batsman, then with Kishan for the role of wicketkeeper batsman.
There is probably no need to tell you that due to the non-fitness of Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant, the claims of players for some important places for Team India have increased suddenly before the World Cup.
It is everyone's dream to play in the World Cup and there have been so many contenders in Team India as well. When captain Rohit Sharma was asked about this dilemma, he said that it is difficult but it is necessary to understand that injury can happen to any player at any time and the need is to have 11 instead of At least the focus should be on the option of at least 15 -20 players.
Along the way, we also asked Rohit that how much Virat Kohli's form means to him and whether he was worried about Kohli's form at any point of time or tried to talk to him. Rohit, in his inimitable style, said that he has answered this question earlier as well and wanted to reiterate that there are some players who don't need to be told what to do.
But, among fast bowlers, Rohit may need to tell Umran Malik how important this series is for him.
Despite an ordinary game in IPL, this fast bowler from Kashmir has got a place in Team India because Team India wants to keep the option of a great bowler with speed in every situation.
In the spin bowling department too, there is a fight between two teammates Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav. Since 2022, Yadav's game has been slightly better than Kuldeep's in ODI cricket, but in the IPL, Chahal showed that he too has many arrows in his quiver.
Ravindra Jadeja has not got many wickets as a bowler but as an all-rounder, he will play in every match with Hardik Pandya and Shardul Thakur in Team India.
Captain Rohit and coach Rahul Dravid were engrossed in discussing some issue for half an hour, while chief selector Ajit Agarkar and another Mumbai selector Salil Ankola stood 4 meters away in the sun with Virat Kohli for nearly an hour Standing and talking.
It is not known what happened among these people, but it is not difficult to guess that everyone is considering this series as a good opportunity to test the preparations for the World Cup. On the other hand, there is probably nothing to lose for the West Indies team. But coach Darren Sammy warned all his players during the early morning practice session that how even the Prime Minister is disappointed with his team's performance.
Sammy was encouraging his players by saying that so what if you are not able to play the World Cup, but if they manage to beat a strong team like India, then maybe people will get some relief and be happy. But, if Team India loses a single match during this series, then instead of celebrating their series victory, the loss of that one match can be the biggest pull. In such a situation, you can guess that Rohit Sharma does not have much accolades after winning, but losing can increase the pressure a lot.
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