India vs west indies, 2014-15 Features

Before going into the 1st ODI, nothing suggested that India could be beaten -- let alone thrashed by 124 runs -- but not because the West Indies are a bad ODI side. The suspicion was the motivation levels of the visitors could not have been high after their players threatened pull-out of the series over a payment dispute with their Board.

While India have given their first-choice spinner Ravichandran Ashwin a break for the first three ODIs in the upcoming series vs West Indies starting October 8, pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami continue to find themselves in the thick of things despite the risk of fatigue.

Defending world champions India start their World Cup preparation at home against the West Indies in the absence of two key players and without the men, who orchestrated the triumph of 2011.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul has so far played 158 Test matches having scored 11,684 runs with 30 centuries. He played 268 ODIs till 2011 scoring 8778 runs with 11 hundreds and Rahul Dravid said the West Indian left-handed was different in his sense of style.