How current India players performed on the last West Indies tour
With India’s tour to the Caribbean Islands less than two weeks away, the stage is set for some riveting Test cricket action, something that would see the subcontinental nation play as many as 17 Tests this season. After a one-week preparatory camp at the National Cricket Academy, Bengaluru, the Indian cricket team left for the West Indies on July 5 to lock horns with the Caribbean side for a 4-Test series.
To be led by Virat Kohli, the 17-man contingent has plenty of new faces as compared to the team that toured the Windies in 2011, which was India’s last tour there. Only four of the current Test team members – Virat Kohli, Amit Mishra, Murali Vijay and Ishant Sharma – were a part of the last contingent that toured the nation five years back. A look at their performances on that tour would give us a brief idea about the relative comfort that each of those four players has while playing on Caribbean soil.
Ishant Sharma
The 2011 tour to the West Indies was one of the crowning jewels of Ishant Sharma’s career, as he wrecked havoc amidst the West Indian lineups and ended up with 22 wickets from three Tests and was adjudged as the Man of the Series. On pace-friendly Caribbean wickets, Sharma’s pace, and the movement that he extracted from the surface as well as in the air proved out to be lethal for the inexperienced West Indies batsmen. The then 22-year-old picked up 6 wickets in the first Test in Jamaica, 10 wickets – with the then career-best haul of 6/55 – in the second Test at Barbados and six more wickets in the third Test at Dominica.
Clearly, the pace-friendly tracks of the Caribbean had suited the right-arm fast bowler, and when he returns to bowl on similar surfaces, he would love to replicate those performances. The 27-year-old has 201 Test wickets to his name from 68 Tests, and would look forward to this tour as a preparatory ground for the 13 home Tests that India are scheduled to play this season.