West Indies head coach Daren Sammy is viewing the upcoming ODI series against India as a pivotal opportunity to gauge his team’s standing in the format while also aiming to end a two-decade drought of series wins in India.
“It’s been 24 years, we’ve not won a series here in India,” Sammy remarked before the first match scheduled for Sunday. “So it’s a great opportunity for us as a team to come out here and challenge ourselves and measure up ourselves as to where we are in ODIs. And I think it’s a great opportunity for us, the players that we have, to come and put in a good show against India and look to win a series, something we’ve not done in 24 years.”
Sammy sees this three-match series, starting in Thiruvananthapuram, as a significant component of the team’s preparation for the ODI World Cup qualifiers that will take place early next year. The West Indies had missed out on automatic qualification for the 2027 tournament.
“If you have to win a major ICC event, especially in the white-ball format, you have to beat India,” Sammy stated. “And we playing them here at home in their conditions and performing well and winning gives us a fair idea as to what we could do as a team and how capable we are in competing on the world stage. Heading into the qualifiers in February, you know, that is our No. 1 focus – continuing to fine-tune the team so that when we go to the qualifiers, we put ourselves in a position to book our ticket to South Africa.”
West Indies are currently ranked tenth and, even with a clean sweep against India, they won’t qualify directly for the next ODI World Cup. This means they must once again try their luck in the qualifiers for the third time in a row.
Sammy is optimistic about the team’s development, highlighting that victories are coming from a broader range of players rather than just a select few. “The reality of the situation [is] we’ve not made it,” he said. “However if we have to look back as to where we were and what we’ve been able to achieve as an ODI team, we’ve made some strides. Missing automatic qualification by six points, starting from where we were back then, which was, I think, 19 or 20 points behind, and accumulating those points, I thought we made a lot of strides in making a claim to automatic qualification.”
It’s not just Shai Hope hitting centuries now. Contributions are also coming from others like Amir Jangoo and Sherfane Rutherford. Alzarri Joseph’s performance is noteworthy too, just having assisted Antigua in winning a CPL title. Sammy is enthused by the progress, stating, “So yes, we want to give everybody an opportunity in those three games.”
Sammy also praised the performance of young wristspinner Vitel Lawes, who debuted against New Zealand in July and took eight wickets across five matches. “Vitel, to me, he’s a find for us. What we saw in him that caused him to debut against New Zealand was all part of the planning and the processes we put in place. You’ve heard me for years talking about a wristspinner in the West Indies team. And Vitel, he came in and he immediately had an impact on the bowling unit for us. Still got a long way to go but we will continue with his development through either playing games or the specific work we’ve put in place for him. He’s worked really well with Nikita Miller and Ravi Rampaul here on tour. So yes, we’ll continue creating those opportunities for him and hopefully he could continue to grow. A little bit fast-tracked but we’re pleased with what he’s done so far.”
