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Business as usual for Dhoni’s boys as cricket seeks to enthral new audience
FORT LAUDERDALE: Cricket will seek to reach out to the untapped American market when the sport’s most followed practitioners, India, lock horns with the West Indies
FORT LAUDERDALE: Cricket will seek to reach out to the untapped American market when the sport’s most followed practitioners, India, lock horns with the West Indies in their maiden international game in the US here on Saturday.
The two T20Is over the weekend will be the first instance of India being involved in a competitive match in the United States.
Days after India cruised to victory in the four-match Test series for their third successive triumph on the Caribbean soil, the team’s seasoned campaigner Mahendra Singh Dhoni will return to lead the side in the two limited overs games at the Central Broward Regional Park, the only purpose-built cricket stadium in the US.
It is the only ICC certified One-day standard stadium facility in the USA and hosted six Caribbean Premier League matches last month.
The 14-member Indian team will see the return of as many as 11 regular players who were rested from the tour to Zimbabwe in May earlier this year.
Dhoni, who retired from the longest format of the game in December 2014, is scheduled to play just seven more matches in 2016 — two T20Is against the West Indies in USA and 5 ODIs against New Zealand in India.
Dhoni’s last assignment was against Zimbabwe where he led a young Indian team, sans the stars, to victory in both the ODIs and T20I series in Harare in June.
The two-match series is going to be the first of what will develop into an annual event in the US. Even though India won the Test series 2-0, players from the Test squad are coming with hardly any recent match practice because of the rain-affected fourth Test in Port-of-Spain.
As far as the West Indies team is concerned, the focus will be on Carlos Brathwaite, who was elevated to captaincy in place of Darren Sammy.
They may be the reigning world champions in the format, having triumphed in India earlier this year, but that didn’t save Sammy’s job as skipper.
“I think a team like this will be pretty easy to lead, from the point of view that the dressing room is a fun place to be,” said Brathwaite. “I don’t think it’s a case where I have to negotiate too many egos.”
India have no issues on the confidence front heading into the weekend. They have enjoyed a solid run in the T20 series in recent times, winning in Australia, Sri Lanka and claiming the Asia Cup before recovering to beat Zimbabwe 2-1.
