India's MS Dhoni bats
India's MS Dhoni bats during the World Cup match against West Indies at Old Trafford in Manchester, on Thursday, June 27, 2019. Image Credit: AP

Dubai: India’s inning coming to an end after scoring 268 for seven in their 50 overs against West Indies, the one big question on everyone’s mind will be, is this score enough to defend?

It is certainly a defendable score, two reasons for that. Primarily the Indian bowling has the depth to do it against the famed West Indian batting and secondly the wickets have changed over the last 10 days of the competition.

It’s still in everyone’s memory about the huge 300-plus scores that the World Cup witnessed early in the tournament. Those are memories of a distant past, in the last 10 matches only two scores have been over the 300-run mark and twice the under-300 scores were overhauled, including one by Pakistan against New Zealand yesterday.

The variable bounce on the surface will not be conducive for strokeplay and the West Indians, traditionally who play the attacking game, will need to alter their approach.

So I feel it’s advantage India!