Vin­ode Mam­chan

The last time these two na­tions met in a one day in­ter­na­tion­al, the West In­dies play­ers had just packed their bags in the ho­tel to go home and the In­di­ans were play­ing in their con­di­tions at Dharamsha­la in the moun­tains in In­dia.

To­mor­row morn­ing (2.30 am), when they meet at the WA­CA in Perth, the sit­u­a­tion will be to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent. The West In­dies play­ers don't in­tend to pack their bags ear­ly to go home from this World Cup, while the In­di­ans will have to con­tend with the fastest pitch in Aus­tralia. The West In­dies play­ers are fo­cussed on the field, not their bank ac­counts for this game, so the In­di­ans will not find it easy against the men from the blue wa­ters of the Caribbean.

West In­dies have found them­selves in a po­si­tion where they need to win their fi­nal two games to en­sure move­ment in­to the quar­ter­fi­nals, while the In­di­ans are vir­tu­al­ly there, hav­ing tak­en care of Pak­istan, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) and South Africa in their three games to date. Even if they lose to the West In­dies, they will more than like­ly go through, as they still have to face Zim­bab­we and Ire­land be­fore round­ing up their pre­lim­i­nary play.

The West In­dies have to win this match and they al­so have to take care of the UAE in their fi­nal match at Napi­er in New Zealand on March 15. If the West In­dies lose here, they will have to beat UAE bad­ly in their fi­nal game to stand a chance of mak­ing the fi­nal four.

The sup­port from the stands will not be in favour of the West In­dies, as In­di­an fans have over­tak­en Aus­tralia, so much so that they can even give the lo­cals a run for their mon­ey, if they clash with Aus­tralia lat­er on in the tour­na­ment.

For­mer cap­tain and se­nior play­er on the West In­dies team, Dar­ren Sam­my, be­lieves that the fans are in for a treat at the WA­CA. The match will be played on a very aus­pi­cious day for the In­di­ans, as back home many will adorn them­selves with bright colours to cel­e­brate 'Holi'. Sam­my wants to spoil that par­ty.

"In­dia could cel­e­brate Holi and we could hope­ful­ly cel­e­brate a win."

Open­er Chris Gayle will need to play a big hand against bowlers he is very fa­mil­iar with, giv­en his stints in the In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL).

Gayle comes in­to the clash nurs­ing an in­jured back but Sam­my says it should not be a back fac­tor.

"Chris Gayle's back has been the same for the last three years but he con­tin­ues to turn up and per­form for us," he said in­stead. "He is a se­nior play­er and once he is fit and he be­lieves he could make it, he will turn up and give his all for the team."

An­oth­er big fac­tor for the West In­dies is the be­low par bowl­ing per­for­mances to date.

"I think it's not been con­sis­tent, we don't cre­ate enough pres­sure on the op­po­si­tion when we bowl and as you could see the games when we bowl well, when we get it right and be con­sis­tent, we com­pete with the best in the world. It's about hit­ting our line and length and es­pe­cial­ly in the death overs, hit our york­ers and come back with a plan. It's quite dif­fi­cult to stop the bats­men with four men out­side the cir­cle. So we have to come up with a plan be­fore to min­imise the dam­age that can be done in the back­end of the in­nings," said Sam­my.

"Any fast bowler would be ex­cit­ed about bowl­ing at the WA­CA. It's one of the quick­est wick­ets in the world, but that said, In­dia is play­ing re­al­ly well. It's not that our fast bowlers will come and blast the bats­men out. You still need to put the ball in the right ar­eas and look to get the re­sult. And that's what we have to do."

Teams:

West In­dies: Ja­son Hold­er (cap­tain), Chris Gayle, Dwayne Smith, Mar­lon Samuels, John­son Charles, Lendl Sim­mons, Jonathan Carter, De­nesh Ramdin, Dar­ren Sam­my, An­dre Rus­sell, Ke­mar Roach, Jerome Tay­lor, Sulie­man Benn, Niki­ta Miller and Shel­don Cot­trell.

In­dia: MS Dhoni (cap­tain), Vi­rat Kohli, Ro­hit Shar­ma, Ajinkya Ra­hane, Suresh Raina, Am­bati Rayudu, Ravin­dra Jade­ja, Ravichan­dran Ash­win, Axar Pa­tel, Bhu­vnesh­war Ku­mar, Mo­hit Shar­ma, Mo­hammed Sha­mi, Stu­art Bin­ny and Umesh Ya­dav.

Stand­ings:

LAT­EST GROUP B STAND­INGS

Team P W L T N P NRR

IN­DIA 3 3 0 0 0 6 +2.630

S-AFRICA 4 3 1 0 0 6 +1.950

WEST IN­DIES 4 2 2 0 0 4 -0.313

IRE­LAND 3 2 1 0 0 4 -1.137

PAK­ISTAN 4 3 2 0 0 4 -1.373

ZIM­BAB­WE 4 1 3 0 0 2 -0.723

UAE 4 0 4 0 0 0 -1.326