World Test Championship: Not a minor series from West Indies, Virat Brigade has 60 points at stake

The first match of the two-Test series against the West Indies under the World Test Championship will be played at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua from Thursday. This match will start at 7 pm Indian time.

After a strong performance in the limited-overs format, the Indian cricket team will look to score 60 points starting with a win at the ICC World Test Championship. The first match of the two-Test series against the West Indies under the World Test Championship will be played at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua from Thursday. This match will start at 7 pm Indian time.

The top nine teams are participating in the World Test Championship, which includes Australia, Bangladesh, England, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and West Indies apart from India. Each series will have 120 points. There will be 60 points of a match in a two-match series and 40 points of a match in a three-match series. The tie will yield half points, while the draw will be divided in the ratio of 3: 1.

Test specialists Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane will play international cricket after seven months. He recently performed brilliantly against West Indies-A and captain Virat Kohli will hope that these two batsmen continue their strong performance in the first Test match as well.

The Indian team is currently the No. 1 team in the world rankings and would like to strengthen its position at the top position. After suffering a crushing defeat in ODIs and T20 series, the morale of the host team is low. Experience is also in favor of the Indian team.

Captain Virat Kohli is running in excellent form. In the ODI series, he scored two consecutive centuries, if he scores another century in a Test match, then he will be equal to former Australia captain Ricky Potting in terms of scoring a century as a captain. Kohli has scored a total of 18 Test centuries as Indian captain, while Potting has 19 centuries in his name.

Before the match, Kohli said, ‘The game is going to be very competitive and it makes the Test matches you play important. The World Test Championship is the right step taken at the right time.

The Indian team looks strong in the presence of Jasprit Bumrah in the bowling. Apart from this, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav and Kuldeep Yadav can also play in the match. All these players took three wickets in the practice match and submitted their claim to be included in the 11 players.

Ravichandran Ashwin would also like to prove his utility on the field here. He took seven wickets at the same ground in 2016 as well as a century.

On the other hand, the West Indies team had a strong performance in the last Test series against England and the hosts would like to retain the same. However, the defeats against India in ODIs and T20s have raised many questions in front of him.

The hosts will expect a good performance from captain Jason Holder. He has taken 40 wickets along with scoring 565 runs since January 2018.

Teams

India: Virat Kohli (captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (wicketkeeper), Riddhiman Saha (wicketkeeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Mohammad Shaheed, Jaspreet Bumrah, Umesh Yadav.

West Indies: Jason Holder (captain), Craig Braithwaite, Darren Bravo, Shamarah Brooks, John Campbell, Roston Chase, Rahkim Cornwall, Shane Daurich, Shannon Gabriel, Shimron Hetmeyer, Shai Hope (wicketkeeper), Chemo Paul, Camar Roach.