West Indies have landed in Thiruvananthapuram, and two wins over India would still not get them to the World Cup

Shai Hope’s squad landed at Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday morning, 23 September. The first of three ODIs is at the Greenfield International Stadium on Sunday, 27 September, a day-night game starting at 2pm IST.

The tour is longer than the ODI leg. After Thiruvananthapuram the series moves to Guwahati on 30 September and Mullanpur, New Chandigarh, on 3 October, and then there are five T20Is, starting in Lucknow on 6 October.

The date that matters is 30 September

The cut-off for automatic places at the 2027 ODI World Cup is the ICC rankings table on 30 September, the day of the Guwahati game. West Indies are 10th, and two wins over India would not be enough to lift them into the top eight. The eight direct spots have already gone, along with hosts South Africa and Zimbabwe.

So West Indies are going to the Qualifier in February 2027 for the third World Cup cycle running. For the side that won the first two World Cups, in 1975 and 1979, that is a hard thing to get used to. The last Qualifier, in Zimbabwe in 2023, ended with a defeat to Scotland in Harare and no place at the World Cup in India.

It takes the edge off these ODIs for the visitors. Head coach Daren Sammy has framed them as a chance to improve rather than a scramble for points. “Playing against the top team in the world presents us with a chance to fine tune and improve our performances as an ODI team,” he said when the squads were named.

Who is in, who is not

Hope captains both squads. John Campbell is back for the ODIs after a hamstring injury kept him out of the last two games against New Zealand. Ackeem Auguste is still recovering from surgery in August, so Jewel Andrew comes in as a top and middle-order option.

Jason Holder has been rested. Shimron Hetmyer will join for the T20Is only, and the T20I squad also has an uncapped opener in Kamil Pooran, picked after 273 runs in eight innings at a strike rate of 159.64 in this year’s Caribbean Premier League.

The New Zealand series in July did not help West Indies’ case. They lost it 3-2, and Keacy Carty was their leading run-scorer with 194.

India’s side

Shubman Gill leads India with KL Rahul as vice-captain, and Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are both back in the ODI squad. Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Dhruv Jurel are there for the batting, with Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna in the attack, plus Auqib Nabi, Gurnoor Brar and Naman Dhir.

India are not worried about the World Cup table. What they have to work out is a batting order with room for Rohit, Kohli, Gill, Jaiswal and Rahul. We have already covered what the Greenfield pitch tends to do and the full schedule and head-to-head. Sunday is the first chance to see how the new top order actually looks.

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