‘Poor batting caused Windies demise’ says Curator
By Sean Devers
On Thursday at the Kensington Oval, West Indies stumbled to their ninth consecutive defeat against India after being dismantled for 114 in 23 overs which is the lowest total and least overs faced by the home team in 50 ODIs they have played here.
At the end of the match West Indies Captain Shai Hope was not pleased with the preparation of pitch which St Lucian Curator Alton Crafton was in charge of.

Yesterday when the Guyana Chronicle visited the historic venue, the same pitch that was used for the first ODI was being repaired for today’s ‘must win’ game for the host.
West Indies has not beaten India in a ODI series in 17 years.
According to curators — former Barbados left-arm spinner Winton Reid and Nigel Newton — the pitch should play similar to the first ODl.

There was a bit more grass cover and Newton predicted that the first 45 minutes should favour the seamers but after that, and although the track will produce turn, it should be good to bat on.
“If the weather is good, a team that bats properly could score 260-280 on this pitch but with the early start…with the preparation moisture… the team that wins the toss should bowl first,” opined Newton.

The sweltering heat over the three days should provide a fast outfield for today’s ODI which could aid the batters.
Reid, who informed that Crafton had left yesterday, said this pitch was not the traditional hard, fast and bouncy Kensington Oval pitch.

“Bad shot selections and the inability to play the conditions and balls that turned were the main reasons for West Indies struggling to score on Thursday”
“While the Indian spinners (Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav) were very good, the poor batting by the West Indies made them (spinners) look unplayable,” said Reid, who took 205 wickets from 58 First-Class games between 1996-1999.

He further explained that Yadav is a left-arm spinner and three of his four wickets were tail enders not equipped to deal with that type of bowling.
Most of the batters were dismissed due to poor shot selection.
Even Hope, who was playing very well in his 43, played an ill-advised reverse sweep and was LBW to end the home team’s resistance.

With the changing of the pitch out of their control, if West Indies hopes to keep the series alive, they will have to make some changes in the team.
Yesterday, at their ‘net’ session, it was confirmed that all of the players are fit and ready for today.

West Indies could replace Romario Shepherd with the genuinely quick Alzarri Joseph to provide extra ‘bite’ to the pace attack while giving Kevin Sinclair, who was surprisingly left out of the first ODI, a run today.
Hope could open the batting today and allow the others to bat around him while Hetymer could be asked to bat higher.

In the first ODI, India, chasing a small target, allowed their young guns to spend some time in the middle and chase down the target as quickly as possible.

Today, a much larger crowd is anticipated and most of them would love to see Virat Kholi bat while Rohit Sharma could open.
This would be ideal preparations for the Asia Cup and the World Cup in India in October.