When the highly confident hosts play a struggling West Indies team in the second and final Test, which begins in New Delhi on Friday, evaluating Sai Sudharsan’s temperament and Nitish Kumar Reddy’s suitability at home would be India’s top priority.
India’s outstanding group of exceptionally talented cricketers, who can all play for any elite team on the international scene, will take on a West Indies team that is battling to remain relevant in the traditional format and appears to be a pale shadow of its illustrious past.
Now, the Windies team is primarily made up of unwilling players who might not even find employers in the rapidly growing worldwide T20 freelance market. An innings loss in Ahmedabad that lacked any kind of fight was evidence of how Caribbean cricket is now becoming.
In addition to completing the series, India’s next strong showing will help them solidify their position atop the World Test Championship points standings and give them more confidence going into the much more difficult match against South Africa at home later this year.
Another speedy conclusion is promised by the Feroz Shah Kotla’s surface. Ryan ten Doeschate, the assistant coach, pointed up a “dry patch” that seamers would find useful. When India enters with an unchanged XI, that alone guarantees that all-rounder Nitish will keep his berth.
In this format, bowling continues to be Nitish’s forte. The team management is eager to foster his development as a seam-bowling all-rounder in the long term because India’s batting lineup is as deep and stable as any in world cricket.
The selectors and coaches aren’t pressing the panic button yet on Sai Sudharsan, but six failures in his last seven completed innings are a timely reminder of the challenges that come with adapting to red-ball cricket.
While Yashasvi Jaiswal managed a solid start and KL Rahul continued his dream run with three centuries in his last six Tests, captain Shubman Gill too chipped in with a fluent fifty. Amid all that run-scoring, Sudharsan’s struggles stood out — especially as Dhruv Jurel and Ravindra Jadeja piled on centuries to underline the difference.
Despite Gill’s support, Sudharsan would want to prioritize his wicket because he knows there are other players waiting. However, in general, the difference between the two sides is about belief and direction rather than skill or temperament.
The West Indies seem aimless, caught in a cycle of mediocrity that even their own legends struggle to explain, whereas India’s dressing room is humming with purpose.
On the eve of the second Test, head coach Darren Sammy called the downturn “a terminal disease, the cure of which looks improbable at the moment.”
While the Indian team enjoyed a laid-back meal at head coach Gautam Gambhir’s house, the West Indies players met at a local golf course for a casual mentorship session on Tuesday night. Three greats with a combined total of 26,442 Test runs—Sir Vivian Richards, Sir Richie Richardson, and Brian Lara—spoke to the struggling squad there.
It remains to be seen if those pearls of wisdom can generate a brief resistance. For the time being, however, everything about this match points to the inevitable: another quick and brutal Indian triumph, and perhaps another three-day finish.
Mostly made of black soil, the Kotla track offers good value for strokes, and if India bats first, the top order will want to thrash a club-class Windies bowling attack, of which only Jayden Seals looked the part in the first Test.
Squads:
India: Shubman Gill (Captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, B Sai Sudharsan, Dhruv Jurel (Wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Axar Patel, Narayan Jagadeesan (wk), Devdutt Padikkal
West Indies: Roston Chase (Captain), Teganarine Chanderpaul, John Campbell, Alick Athanaze, Brandon King, Johann Layne, Justin Greaves, Kharry Pierre, Shai Hope, Jayden Seals, Jamel Warrican, Kevlon Anderson, Jediah Blades, Tevin Imlach, Anderson Phillip
