FANTASY
Follow UsIndia hammered West Indies by six wickets in the first One-Day International and will now look to seal the three-match series on Wednesday (February 9). The West Indies batting unit struggled big time against Washington Sundar and Yuzvendra Chahal and were bundled out for just 176 in 43.5 overs. Kieron Pollard and Co. will have to put in a much better performance, especially in the batting department, if they want to challenge India in the second encounter and keep the series alive.
It is expected to be a cracker of a contest. In this space, we provide you with valuable tips to build an efficient fantasy XI for this match.
Ground details and team combination
The Ahmedabad surface was slow and offered a lot of assistance to the spinners, especially in the first innings. Chahal scalped four wickets, while Washington took three. Hence, it would be ideal to have at least three spinners in your team. In the batting department, West Indies haven't batted out 50 overs for seven games in a row now and have the worst batting average (26), balls/wicket (32.1) and scoring rate (4.9) amongst the top-10 teams since 2020. So, it won’t be a bad idea to have more Indian batters in your side.
Team suggestion
Captain selection
Rohit Sharma couldn’t have asked for a better start to his full-time captaincy tenure. The right-handed opener scored 60 off 51 deliveries and has been in superb form of late. Moreover, Rohit boasts of an excellent record against West Indies. In 32 ODI knocks against the Caribbeans, Rohit averages 60.88 at a strike rate of 92.4, including three hundreds. All these three tons have come on the home turf, where the average and the strike rate shoot up to 78.57 and 101.1 respectively.
Our Criclytics Player Projector predicts that Rohit will score between 34 and 50 runs in the second ODI.
X-Factors
West Indies batters looked clueless against Yuzvendra Chahal in the first ODI and the legspinner finished with figures of 4/49. The surface will offer enough turn and Chahal could once again be amongst wickets. In six ODIs against West Indies, Chahal has scalped 12 wickets at an average of 23.3 and a strike rate of 26.9.
Time and time again Jason Holder has proven his worth in white-ball cricket. The fast-bowling allrounder scored 57 off 71 deliveries in the first ODI and it was largely because of him that West Indies managed to get to a respectable total. The 30-year-old was also phenomenal with the ball in hand in the T20I series against England. Holder snared 15 wickets in the five-match series at 9.6 runs apiece, striking every 7.4 deliveries. He is someone who can get you points in all three facets of the game.
Here are the top-10 picks as per Criclytics projected points
Probable XIs
India: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur/Deepak Chahar, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal, Prasidh Krishna.
West Indies: Brandon King, Shai Hope (wk), Darren Bravo, Shamarh Brooks, Nicholas Pooran, Kieron Pollard (c), Jason Holder, Fabian Allen, Alzarri Joseph, Akeal Hosein, Kemar Roach/Hayden Walsh.