With Series On The Line, India Ready To Go For The Jugular

West Indies has the firepower to make a match of it as seen in recent outings

- Y.B. Sarangi

India’s resilience, evident from its confident fightbacks in the T20I series against Bangladesh and the West Indies, will hold it in good stead in the third and final One-Day International against the Caribbeans at the Barabati Stadium here on Sunday.

With the series evenly poised at 1-1, the decider may turn Barabati into a pressure cooker.

Having ‘been there, done that’, the Indians know their job well.

High-stakes players “Even the last match was a do-or-die (affair) for us with the series on the line. We will play with a similar mindset. When the stakes are high, I feel all the players pull up the socks, put up their hands,” said middle-order batsman Shreyas Iyer, designated to speak for the team here on Saturday.

Nearly the whole squad — barring Rohit Sharma, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Shami and K.L. Rahul — turning up for an optional practice session on Saturday spoke of the hosts’ intent.

The dew factor comes into play here as early as 5 p.m., the Indians are ready for the challenge, though.