West Indies, the new Sri Lanka

“If they were so easy to address, we would have done so by now,” he said, chuckling, before quickly turning serious and adding: “But it is a genuine concern for us. There are not many games, but we’ll see what we can achieve from the ODIs we have before the World Cup.”

Those remaining matches have been split into two batches of five, with the first set spinning off here against the West Indies — a team that is ranked marginally better than Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Ireland in one-day cricket. At home no less, where India haven’t lost a bilateral ODI series comprising of at least five matches since they did to the then world champions, Australia, in 2009. Nevertheless, here they are again, those humble triers from the Caribbean, for the third time time in four years (five times in four years, if you consider India’s tours of the West Indies), this time in the build-up to the World Cup.

WICB on speed dial

Just as Sri Lanka once were, West Indies are now a wholesome part of India’s comfort diet. Need some confidence abroad before touring England in 2011? Go to the West Indies. Need some confidence after getting walloped by England in 2011? Call home the West Indies. Don’t want to go to South Africa and need a suitable team to bid farewell to a living legend in 2013? Tring tring WICB. Want to fine-tune the squad with the World Cup in mind in 2014? You get the message.

ICC’s FTP perhaps doesn’t quite work like that, but the two sides truly have bumped into each other a lot in recent memory — in the Caribbean, in India and in England (Champions Trophy). And in all those games put together, West Indies have won all of two ODI matches of consequence. One in Ahmedabad in 2011 to keep the series alive at 2-1, only to promptly lose the next two. And one in Kingston in 2013 to take the series lead, again only to promptly lose the next two.

Considering this is a series preview, this would’ve been the point where a quote from a West Indian player would’ve been slipped in to give the article a balanced feel, perhaps a line from captain Dwayne Bravo defending those losses or uttering the usual pre-tour cliches of doing better in this series and how they would like to start the one-dayers well. But the West Indians never did show up on Tuesday; not just for the press conference but at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium as well — giving their pre-match training session an all-member skip. So to make up for their absence, a quote from Dhoni instead.

“The most important thing will be to start well in this series and look to win it, first and foremost,” he said. “But at the same time, we want to do a few things also. We don’t want to go to Australia and say ‘Okay, we should have done this’. This (series) is important, but we need to look at the bigger picture also.”

Weighing options

The said ‘bigger picture’ is of course the World Cup and India’s hope of defending it. To make that happen, Dhoni revealed a few plans for the future. In Rohit Sharma’s absence, India will open with Ajinkya Rahane. Not just in this series, but perhaps all the way through Australia-New Zealand 2015, where Rohit will return as a middle-order batsman once again.

“It suits them both — Ajinkya as an opener, Rohit in the middle order. It gives us more depth but at the same time we’ll have to wait and watch. I personally feel Ajinkya is well suited for the opening role though,” said Dhoni, addressing the first of what the journalist believed to be India’s three worries. On the topic of death bowlers he said that ‘we’re working really hard on it and we’re hoping in the coming games, we’ll get it sorted’. Which left only the topic of spinners.

“We can’t carry too many to Australia. At the same time, we’ll have to see who all are in offer. We’re trying Kuldeep Yadav in this series,” said Dhoni of the young chinaman who has been named in the squad in resting Ravichandran Ashwin’s absence. “We’ll see how Kuldeep copes with international cricket, but we don’t have much time left.”

In the time that they did have between World Cups, India have done better than the tone of this article suggests, winning the Champions Trophy, an ODI series in England and a total of 50 matches — one more than second-best Sri Lanka in the same period. But a fair chunk of those wins have come in the four home-and-away bilateral series victories against the West Indies. How could a fifth one ever hurt?

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