Team India is on a month-long Caribbean tour where they will play the West Indies in two Tests, three ODIs and five T20Is starting with red-ball games on Wednesday, July 12. The Indian players will be back on the field after a month since the World Test Championship (WTC) final debacle. A break, so long, is rare these days considering Indian players' busy international schedule as well as the IPL. However, with a new WTC cycle set to begin, the two-time finalists will be raring to go.
The Indian team made a couple of significant changes with Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ruturaj Gaikwad getting their maiden call-ups as Cheteshwar Pujara, the veteran batter faced the axe alongside pacer Umesh Yadav. The BCCI has hit the transition period and it seems like the phasing out of the seniors will take place slowly, one by one. However, the most surprising decision was the re-election of Ajinkya Rahane as the vice-captain.
Rahane, who was the best batter for India in the WTC final, has been handed over the responsibility once again with all three of Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul and Jasprit Bumrah unavailable.
On the other hand, the West Indies have their own issues to sort out. West Indies lost to South Africa 2-0 when they last played a Test series and the national team in particular hasn't had a great run as it failed to qualify for Super 12 in T20 World Cup last year and now the ODI World Cup this year. Playing against and beating India, there will not be a better motivating factor for the Windies to do better than what they did in the previous cycle.
Here's all you need to know about the India-West Indies Test series:
Full Schedule:
1st Test - July 12-16 at Windsor Park, Roseau, Dominica
2nd Test - July 20-24 at Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain, Trinidad
Squads
West Indies (for first Test): Kraigg Brathwaite (Captain), Jermaine Blackwood (Vice Captain), Alick Athanaze, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, Rahkeem Cornwall, Joshua Da Silva, Shannon Gabriel, Jason Holder, Alzarri Joseph, Kirk McKenzie, Raymon Reifer, Kemar Roach, Jomel Warrican
Travelling Reserves: Tevin Imlach, Akeem Jordan
India: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Virat Kohli, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain), KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Axar Patel, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Navdeep Saini
Live telecast and streaming
The two Test matches between India and the West Indies will have a 7:30 PM IST start. The Test series will have a live telecast through Doordarshan (DD) Sports channel but only on Free cable networks and not on DTH. The series can be streamed live through JioCinema and Fancode. Thus, the series can be watched live on these two apps and their websites.
