Indian batsmen have been in blistering form and the West Indies skipper Darren Sammy feels that the two-Test series will pose a tough challenge for his bowlers.
“We have respect for India. When you look at their recent one-day series (against Australia that India won 3-2) their batsmen have been in good nick. No one wicket is the prized wicket. Everybody in the top six minus Vijay has been playing really good and has been in good form. It would be a tough battle for our bowlers,” said Sammy on Tuesday.
Sammy, however, said he was hoping that the Indian batsmen commit mistakes. “They have been playing a lot of one-day cricket. They have been on the go. It was a run-fest in the last one-day series. So hopefully their batsmen will come out playing a lot of shots and we will get some edges down at slip or some lbws or some bowled outs.
“Hopefully they will be in that same frame of mind and make more mistakes early up in their innings,” Sammy said on the eve of the their opening Test,” Sammy added.
Recollecting Ravichandran Ashwin’s valiant 103 to draw the Mumbai Test, Sammy said all the 20 wickets are important.
“last time we were bowling against the likes of (Virender) Sehwag, (Gautam) Gambhir, (VVS) laxman, (Rahul) Dravid, Sachin (Tendulkar) and (MS) Dhoni. And we bowled them out three times with four bowlers. We are going to be confident and look to execute our plans and look to get 20 important wickets,” he said.
Hinting at a two-spin attack in offspinner Shane Shillingford and left-arm orthodox Veerasammy Permaul, the skipper said the pitch would have long cracks from fourth day onwards.
“looking at it already looks like a fourth-day pitch from the cracks I have seen there. Two spinners and two out-and-out fast bowlers and an allrounder probably would be the way to go. You need two spinners in India. last time we played a combination of six batsmen and two out-and-out fast bowlers with myself and Bishoo. Probably we will look at differently this time and come out with a right combination,” he said.
The Windies were beaten 0-2 in a three-Test series last time but Sammy said the team was more matured now as they have come here with a six-match unbeaten run.