After escaping two very near accidents, Team India finally met with an accident at Motera. Luck is one such thing which don't remain with you forever and that's what happen with Virender Sehwag and his team. Team India managed to win first two ODIs where luck played important part but finally luck went to the West Indies camp leaving India in all sorts of trouble. There is no surprise because this loss, expected by fans after the performances in first two ODIs. But one man who survive through these accidents is Rohit Sharma, who stood tall in all three games and helped Indian team in winning two games and almost the 3rd one, had he got little support from one of the top-order batsman. As they say cricket is a team game and each and every player have to contribute, if team wants to win. Rohit Sharma looked too classy in his three outings and I feel he deserves the place in test eleven ahead of Virat Kohli. Rohit Sharma is far more talented than any other youngster and this reflects in the way he approached this series.
Indian team must blame themselves for this loss because players like Sehwag and Gambhir missed the practice session ahead of this all important ODI and that lack of practice reflected in their performances where captain and his best friend scored duck. Winning combination also tampered with and Abhimanyu Mithun included at the last moment because Chief Selector K.Srikkanth wanted Abhimanyu Mithun to play this ODI, so tampering with winning combination is also one of the factor.
Now West indies have tasted the blood and they will come hard in next two ODIs, so Team India have to play out of their skins to win this ODI series but all depends on how well our top-order performs. I believe Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir are ideal as an opening pair and with Australia tour near, they have to start opening together to build the rapport and momentum between them ahead of all important tour. Parthiv has done nothing substantial with the bat so far in the series, so he should be batting in lower order.
Ideal No.3 is Virat Kohli and I think Rahane deserves to be in the team in place of out-of-form Suresh Raina who looked completely off-colour in his international stints in last few months. Ravi Rampaul is one man who haunted India badly in last 2 ODIS and Indian team have to find out the ways to tackle this Rampaul factor. Sunil Narine who made his debut for West indies looked quite impressive. He will definitely trouble Indian batsmen in coming matches, so Indian batsmen have to adopt simple policy of attacking this mystery bowler, if Indian batsmen play him defensively then he will definitely do lot of damage in coming matches.
Now two ODIs remained and selectors have included Irfan Pathan in the team who is in sublime form this Ranji season. Pathan has picked up 21 wickets at an average of 14 in 4 games, he played so far which includes 3 consecutive 5 wicket hauls. But I must say he is unfortunate to become the victim of selection bias as after performing so well in domestic cricket he is not selected for Australia tour. instead Abhimanyu Mithun got the nod ahead of him because Mithun hails from south zone and Chief Selector is also from south zone. So its a clear bias because Mithun has done nothing for Karnataka team this season. But since he hails from south and that went in his favour.
Team India have to work hard in remaining 2 ODIs if they want to win the series. If India lose this series and top-order batsmen continue to fail then team will go to Australia without any confidence which will affect their performance in Australia as well where they failed to win single test series so far.
