India hope their experiments work in series decider against West Indies

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

India will be hoping the experiment of trying out Sanju Samson and Surykumar Yadav in the middle-order works when they take on the West Indies in the ODI series decider here on Tuesday. India, who have not lost an ODI series to West Indies since 2006, face a rare series defeat after their move to rest skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli backfired in the second game in Barbados. As head coach Rahul Dravid pointed after the six-wicket loss on Saturday, India are looking at the bigger picture ahead of next month's Asia Cup and the upcoming World Cup will have another game to see the kind of impact the younger players can make in a must-win match.

«We will always look at the bigger picture. At this stage in the cycle, the Asia Cup and World Cup coming up we have to look at the bigger picture because of some of the injuries we have. We can't get worried about every single game, every single series, if we do that it will be a mistake,» Dravid asserted on Saturday.

Suryakumar, who is struggling to make his all-round game work in the 50-over format, will be looking to bat long and make a match-winning contribution. For someone like Samson, who has made umpteen comebacks but has not been able to make it count, the series decider presents a golden opportunity. He is likely to bat at number three like he did in the second ODI.

Opener Ishan Kishan has been impressive with the bat since the Test series but Shubman Gill is due for a big one after a quiet tour of West Indies thus far. Hardik Pandya, who opened the bowling in the first two games, is gradually building up his workload. With the bat, he has been far from his best and would be looking to get some runs under his belt before the five-match T20 series against the West