Port of Spain [West Indies], June 23 : West Indies has won the toss and elected to bowl against the Indian side in the opening ODI of the five-match series at the Queen's Park Oval here on Friday.
Having arrived in West Indies following their heart-wrenching 180-run defeat at the hands of arch-rivals Pakistan in the finals of the recently-concluded Champions Trophy at the Kennington Oval on June 18, India will certainly aim to put all on-field controversies regarding their head coach Anil Kumble's exit to rest even as they take on West Indies.
The Jason Holder-led side, on the other hand, locks horns with India, following a drawn three-match ODI series against Afghanistan.
West Indies, who are standing at the ninth spot in the ODI rankings, failed to gain any point from the series against Afghanistan.
As a result, the series against the Men in Blue is their last realistic chance to try to get those ranking points up in a bid to qualify automatically for the 2019 World Cup-where only the top eight ranked teams are guaranteed qualification.
Meanwhile, India is without Anil Kumble who stepped down from the position of head coach which he took up last year following Champions Trophy.
The Virat Kohli-led side is with general manager Dr M.V. Sridhar to supervise the team management for the West Indies tour. Meanwhile, Sanjay Bangar, and R Sridhar, continue to remain the batting coach and the fielding coach, respectively.
Here are the playing XI of both teams: India: Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli (c), Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni (wk), Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav West Indies: Evin Lewis, Kieran Powell, Shai Hope (wk), Jason Mohammed, Roston Chase, Jonathan Carter, Jason Holder (c), Ashley Nurse, Devendra Bishoo, Alzarri Joseph, Miguel Cummins.
Source: ANI
