A low-stakes test for India's pace depth

Two hours into the session, the actual clouds gave way to an injury cloud within the India camp: Shubman Gill was hit by a Mohammed Siraj delivery in the nets and did not return to bat afterward.

Between those two events, the familiar sight of Morne Morkel, now a regular at pre-series pressers, looked to make sense of the West Indies ODIs, which fall between the much-hyped England tour in July, and the imminent tour of New Zealand.

On the surface, a home contest against the tenth-ranked team might not feel like ideal preparation for the World Cup, now just over a year away. Five days away from the cutoff date, West Indies can’t do enough to squeeze in automatic qualification for that event either.

The immediate challenge might not seem as intimidating, and the conditions far from those expected in Africa next year, but India still has a clear opportunity. To test the depths of their pace unit, which now sports a different look with some regulars at the Asian Games.

“Coming to the World Cup is the biggest stage, you can't decide a month or a week before the tournament now that we're going to step things up,” Morkel said. “It starts now with this series against the West Indies how we bowl, bat and field, you know, how can we put ourselves under pressure? We challenge the bowlers today when conditions are tough, or (against) certain partnerships with the bat are developing.”

For Morkel, the series is a chance to test the fringe group's readiness by “throwing” themselves into situations. “I want to see guys going to Shubman and asking for the ball and wanting to create opportunities,” Morkel said, “and not be sort of protecting their own space. That will be a great goal for us if we can develop that now, for guys wanting the tough situations.”

Since the start of the year, India has fielded seven frontline quicks in ODIs. Prasidh Krishna (seven) and recently capped Gurnoor Brar (six) have played the most. In Jasprit Bumrah's absence, both are likely starters against the West Indies.

Mohammed Siraj, who handed Gill the elbow blow, hasn’t played an ODI since January. Post the 2023 World Cup, he has played just nine ODIs, averaging 47 with a strike-rate of 53, numbers significantly higher than the rest of the pack.

All of them were in attendance in a full-house practice session in Trivandrum. For Morkel, this series is an extension of an exercise ongoing from last year, giving players more game time in different roles “to see how they react”, and will continue on the New Zealand tour that follows.

“It’s very important for those guys to get game time, to get a feel of the standard that we're looking to play. In this series there will definitely be opportunities given to guys to see what they can do in their different roles”.

“We're constantly keeping an eye on workload management, how to give the guys the best opportunity to be fit and put their name in the hat for selection. We’ve got Hardik, we've got Harshit, all those guys are still on the sidelines and we're excited to get them back and playing and fit again.

He does rue the absence of his first-choice bowlers: “Luckily, we've got fantastic backup in the wings and it's a great opportunity again now for the guys to go and play a game for India, to make a name for themselves and to compete. Really hopefully we can get all the injuries out of the way and later down the year it will be fine”.

In Pandya’s absence, Nitish Kumar Reddy, the last piece of the pace attack, has been pushed hard to own the all-rounder’s spot. After IPL 2026, statistically his best season with the ball, Reddy played the Afghanistan ODIs even as Pandya remained absent. But a fresh injury put paid to his UK trip, and while he’s impressed with short, sharp T20I spells, Nitish’s endurance for longer ODI spells remains largely untested.

“With Nitish, if we just rewind to the (Afghanistan) T20Is, the way he bowled there in different situations has been very impressive,” Morkel said. “The message to him all the time is just to keep things simple and do the basics as well as possible.

“He always wants to be the guy that wants to create opportunities and having that mindset is fantastic. But the role we want him to play in certain situations is how we can ask him to be as consistent, how well he can fulfill just doing the basics as best as possible. That is where we need to give him those opportunities to learn and grow.

“Luckily, we do have a bit of time now and it would be great for Indian cricket if we could keep on developing him and for him to compete for that all-rounder spot. He's got all the talent and ability to do that, but for us it's just again important to manage him quite well, to give him quite a simple role in terms of what he needs to do for the team”.

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