The first Test match between India and West Indies will mark the beginning of the Indian home season of 2018/19. West Indies will play two Tests, five ODIs and three T20Is in total on the tour. The series begins with the first Test at Rajkot.
West Indies are coming off a drawn Test series against Sri Lanka and a whitewash of Bangladesh in Tests. They will miss their star fast bowler Kemar Roach for the first Test who returned home following the death of his grandmother and will only make it back from Barbados midway through the Rajkot game.
This gives the new faces like Sherman Lewis and Keemo Paul a chance to shine with Shanon Gabriel leading the pack. They will have the assistance of spinners Jomel Warrican, Roston Chase and Devendra Bishoo, who will be licking their lips at the prospect of bowling on spin friendly tracks in India.
Batting wise, Kraig Brathwaite, Sunil Ambris, Simron Hetmyer, Kieron Powell and captain Jason Holder will be leading the attack against Indian bowlers.
Speaking of India, the no.1 ranked Test team is still hurting from the 1-4 drubbing at the hands of England and will want to release all that frustration on West Indies. Virat Kohli is back to lead the Indian team which sees new faces like Prithvi Shaw, Mayank Agarwal and Mohammed Siraj in the squad.
It was confirmed that 18-year-old Prithvi Shaw will make his Test debut for India as the opening partner of KL Rahul. This is good news for the Indian team who are looking for options to out of form M Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan.
The pitch at Rajkot is expected to offer spin and this means spinners might rule the roost and it will be interesting to see how the visitors do against world class Indian spinners in Ashwin and Jadeja.
This remains to see how the West Indies team faces the challenge of Indian team in its own backyard.
Toss: India won the Toss and opted to Bat
Playing XIs:
India: Lokesh Rahul, Prithvi Shaw, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli(c), Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant(w), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav
West Indies: Kraigg Brathwaite(c), Kieran Powell, Shai Hope, Shimron Hetmyer, Roston Chase, Sunil Ambris, Shane Dowrich(w), Keemo Paul, Devendra Bishoo, Sherman Lewis, Shannon Gabriel
