First One Day International

West Indies v India



Friday 24th June 2009, 15:30pm BST
Sky Sports 3 (15:25-23:30)

Is there such thing as a weak Indian team? I'm not so sure myself but this four game ODI series will certainly answer that question for us.

Without Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan and Suresh Raina missing the Indians go in search of a nice quick pick-me-up after their desperately disappointing T20 World Cup. I have similar feelings quite frankly as I didn't have the most profitable of competitions it is fair to say!

Sabina Park Jamaica

Even without these players we will still see a very strong Indian side playing on Caribbean shores as the likes of captain fantastic MS Dhoni, Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma will look to be lynch pins in this Indian batting line up and not least to mention, the truly explosive pairing of Yuvraj Singh and Yusuf Pathan. The class and wile of Harbhajan Singh is an asset in any series on any surface and in the pace ranks there is the wicket-taking Ishant Sharma, the economy of Praveen Kumar and the variety in terms of having a left arm seamer amongst the ranks in RP Singh. One man who could make an impact if there is any turn on offer is youngster Praveen Ohja who impressed so much in the IPL.

West Indies Captain Chris Gayle

The West Indies, whilst talented, do always tend to have a Jekyll and Hyde nature to their game completely symptomatic of the teams they often pick. There is three world-class batsmen in the ranks in the form of Explosive opener and captain Chris Gayle, the dogged and determined Shiv Chanderpaul and the flair of Ramnaresh Sarwan. They do have a good all-rounder in Dwayne Bravo who offers plenty in the field also and in terms of bowling they only really have one class bowler in Jerome Taylor who can be deadly quick and has honed his skills well in recent years. The rest to say the least is pretty mediocre.

I don't expect too many demons in Kingston in terms of the surface and therefore all things being equal if I were pricing this up (to a 100% book) I would make India a favourite at 1.57 with the West Indies at 2.25 underdogs. The 1.92 on offer on Betfair should be taken, as it is, in my opinion, MASSIVE VALUE.

Cheer on the Indians and beat financial blues.

RECOMMENDATION - 4 Points on India @ 1.92 (Betfair )

Crafty Stan