India opts to bowl against Windies

Lead by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Team India comprise of Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Ambati Rayudu, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Amit Mishra, Mohammed Shami and Mohit Sharma.

On the other hand, led by maverick batsman Dwayne Bravo, the Caribbean playing XI comprise of Dwayne Smith, Marlon Samuels, Darren Bravo, Denesh Ramdin, Kieron Pollard, Darren Sammy, Andre Russell, Sulieman Benn, Ravi Rampaul and Jerome Taylor.

While Team India has rested their main spinner Ravichandra Ashwin for the first three games, West Indies on the other hand suffered setback owing to the unavailability of their two key team members, flamboyant opening batsman Chris Gayle and “mysterious” spinner Sunil Narine.

Gayle is out with injury, while Narine has been handed a temporary ban by ICC following reports of his illegal bowling action.

But the Windies team had to sort other problems ahead of the first match.

On Tuesday West Indies camp run into controversy with reports coming that the players have refused to play owing differences with the county’s cricket board, WICB over dispute in pay packages.

But the Caribbean board somehow managed the cricketers just hours before play started.

Not having lost their last three ODI home series against the Caribbeans, India will start favourites as they take on West Indies.

Captain Dhoni has already said that they are going to test a few combinations and experiment on different things during the series as part of their preparation to next year’s ICC World Cup which will take place in Australia and New Zealand.

Though West Indies team has lost two defeats in the warm-up games against India A, India seems to ignore the fact and is taking his opposition seriously.

Dhoni’s rivals depend heavily on skipper Dwayne Bravo, Smith, Pollard and Russell - all are IPL stalwarts.

Rampaul and Samuels are quality limited overs cricketers and Ramdin's ability to score big in the middle order turn West Indies to a good side.