India vs West Indies, 2nd test at St. LuciaEverybody knows what happened on the last few minutes of Day 4 of the first test at Antigua(here's more if you don't)
and many might have thought it will be Brain Lara who will be fined
because of showing wrong behaviour - to the umpires and also to Dhoni and Mohammad Kaif. But match officials thought otherwise and fined Virendra Sehwag for "excessive appealing"...??
Anyways, 20% of match fees doesn't really bother a highly successful Indian cricketer like Virendra Sehwag and I am sure he will be disappointed but can manage... Now the destination for Indian team is St. Lucia where they will play the second test match against West Indies which starts on 10th of June - Saturday. St. Lucia, also known as Saint Lucia is yet another picturesque island of Caribbean but what's important for team India is to get a win here. The test series is like a three match series now and a win here will mean a real good chance for us to win the test series in West Indies after a gap of 35 years. For your information, let me remind you that the last and only test series that Indian cricket team won in West Indies was in 1971 when We won the  first test match at Port of Spain
and rest all the four test matches were drawn. Here's more on the history of india v West Indies test matches..St. Lucia cricket ground, called as Beausejour Stadium in Gros islet in St Lucia has hosted just two test matches till date - one between West Indies and SriLanka and another between West Indies and Bangladesh. The one that Bangladesh played here was the most special test match Bangladesh has ever played outside there home as they took lead in first innings in that match and were very close to winning that match as well, but couldn't quite do it. Beausejour Stadium in St. Lucia is the only cricket ground that has floodlights and has hosted a Day/Night match - West Indies vs Zimbabwe exactly a month ago. The pitch at St. Lucia is as mysterious as all the other cricket pitches in West Indies, which are known to get better for batting as the days goes on but having said that, Antigua pitch was very similar but India just failed to get one last wicket. So it means that one has to play good game rather than depend on the pitch to assit the bowlers..And if it doesn't helps the bowlers, it will mean that our Indian batsmen will have better time than West Indian batsmen who are grown up on those kind of wickets.. The Weather can be a problem for this second test match at St. Lucia as the weather reports suggest mild showers throughout the 5 days of this 2nd test match. Its also because of the reason that January to April is rainless days in St. Lucia while May to November has also been rainy months. The West Indies team is struggling to find fast bowlers for this second test match against India as their best bowler - Fidel Edwads got injured in the first test and now they have called in Perdo Collins - the left arm fast bowler who bowls are around a speed of 130-135 kmph and has so far played 29 test matches for West Indies. The problem with West Indies is that there is no domestic cricket going on in there and that means that all the first class seam bowlers are not playing competitive cricket these days. They have called in Pedro Collins above bowlers like Deren Powell and Tino Best because of his experience, specially  against India. If you
remember, Pedro Collins was the man who took 1 wicket in the first
innings and 3 wickets in the 2nd innings against India at Sabina Park,
Jamaica, in the 5th test match of the 2002
series and India lost that final test match to loose the series 2-1.
Pedro Collins may not be playing cricket these days but he knows how to
bowl to Indian batsmen and that's what West Indies are looking from him.West Indies will surely be including Jerome Taylor into the playing eleven as he is the fastest bowler in their ranks right now and he also has been in good from. Moreover, there is lots of concern over the fitness of Corey Collymore, who bowled well in the first test match but struggled to bowl too many overs.. Now two important notes :- 1) Tensports - the channel that is telecasting the India vs West Indies test series in India, has finally come to an agreement with Dish Tv and that means that all those Indians who were not able to watch this cricket series will now have an option to go for Dish Tv and get Tensports. This deal has also mean that Sony-Discovery one alliance has joined hands with Dish Network and if you go for this Direct-to-home option, you will also have ESPNStar at your television sets which will be telecasting the FIFA World Cup Football in India. So nearly all the channels are now available through Dish Tv..!! 2) So many companies like Ceat, Wisden and other have tried to make a cricket rating system that will catch the attention on International cricket views but they all failed. Now ICC has launched the cricket ratings - called as LG ICC cricket ratings and it has been very successful. So if you need to know what changes are happening in India rating as per this cricket series against West Indies, here's your answer. India, needed to clean sweep this test series against West Indies to go at the second spot into the ICC cricket ratings but as as the first test is a draw, India can only get to 111 points at most, which will keep them at the third spot in test ratings.. Related Articles |