SIR VIVIAN RICHARDS: WACA offers Windies a chance to beat India
India's bowling is looking good for now but it isn't consistent enough and West Indies can capitalise, says West Indies legend
India is a powerful force at this point in time with three wins out of three matches. Its batting is always its strong point and it is looking good. It bowling is looking good too, as good as anything we have seen so far from them on this long tour. But even then, it is not consistent enough and sooner or later, that factor will come to play. That is an open chance for any opposition team to pounce on.
I think the West Indies’ batting order is talented enough to take a chance against such a traditionally inconsistent India bowling attack. While India is comfortably placed in Pool B, West Indies has to make up points for qualification to the next round. However, this is not a must-win game for it by any means. In fact, I don’t want it to think like that, because it will only put undue pressure on it.
If it thinks so, it will lose shape. Instead, it should just go about its business like it would in any normal match, as professionals, and that will help it achieve what it wants to. If it can make it happen, it will be very good for its confidence.
That is the importance of victory in this match against India in Perth. Winning will help boost the morale of this West Indies team by 120 percent and certainly provide it enough confidence to progress far in this tournament.
India has also beaten Pakistan in its opening game of this ICC Cricket World Cup. But nowadays, you never know which Pakistan side will turn up to play a match. It has been poor off late and beating an unpredictable side like Pakistan doesn’t give you any credentials – certainly not at this stage, certainly not about retaining its world champions’ crown.
But it will be eager to play on this Perth pitch because it will give it a morale boost. More than anywhere, playing at the bouncy WACA wicket gives West Indies a better chance of beating India, but it will have to play the right sort of bowling attack to make good use of it.
It should think about playing Sheldon Cottrell in this game. I know he is a rookie when it comes to ICC Cricket World Cup. He will bring serious aggression into the game. Sometimes he can get carried away and be expensive, but he has that meanness as a fast bowler and there is no more suitable place than Perth for him to showcase that.
Also, despite having suffered in the last match against South Africa, I believe Jason Holder is bowling well. He is hitting the deck as hard as he can, using his height well. The bounce of the WACA pitch will act as another necessary tool for him in his progression.
Otherwise, I think it will be a good match-up between two explosive batting orders. Virat Kohli and Chris Gayle were among my players to watch-out-for in this ICC Cricket World Cup, and they have not let me down. Even besides these two players, there is too much talent on show with players from these two sides, that it will be a very good game in Perth.
Both these sets of players feature in the Indian Premier League a lot, as opposition players and as team-mates too. It can be said that they know each other quite well. However, I don’t read too much into that. If that were true, then West Indies should have been able to stop South Africa and AB de Villiers, after all they are the most recent team to play them before this tournament began.
But just like in South Africa, here in its match too, it seemed as if it had no plans to get de Villiers out or even to contain him. So I don’t read much into what sort of impact players’ closeness, thanks to IPL, might have on this game.
It is about proper execution of plans on the given day, that’s all that matters.