Toss West Indies chose to bowl v India
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04:37
‘Virat is the main focus’ – Brathwaite
The toss at the Wankhede stadium can be vital, but also straightforward. With its small boundaries, a true pitch and the prospect of dew, captains prefer to chase and that’s exactly what Darren Sammy did.
Sammy said West Indies “came here on a mission,” but India have not been the most accommodating hosts. They have done away with one of their out of form batsmen – Shikhar Dhawan – and replaced him with a man who’s grown up playing cricket in Mumbai – Ajinkya Rahane. He is listed as an opener, where the team management think he will thrive, but he comes into a knockout match with very little game time. Rahane has not played international cricket since getting a duck against Pakistan in the Asia Cup in February.
The other change that MS Dhoni had to make was who to bring in for the injured Yuvraj Singh. The nod was given to Manish Pandey, who has not played competitive cricket since late January when he struck a match-winning 104 not out against Australia in Australia.
West Indies made a couple of changes of their own. Chris Gayle, who was rested for their last game, a loss to Afghanistan, returned to take his place at the top of the order and Lendl Simmons has been brought in to replace the injured Andre Fletcher. He would know the Wankhede stadium quite well considering he opens for the local IPL team Mumbai Indians. In this West Indies XI though, he is listed at No. 4.
India 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Ajinkya Rahane, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Suresh Raina, 5 Manish Pandey, 6 MS Dhoni (capt and wk), 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 R Ashwin, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Ashish Nehra
West Indies 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Johnson Charles, 3 Marlon Samuels, 4 Lendl Simmons, 5 Denesh Ramdin (wk), 6 Dwayne Bravo, 7 Andre Russell, 8 Darren Sammy (capt), 9 Carlos Brathwaite, 10 Sulieman Benn, 11 Samuel Badree
Alagappan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo