With the Cricket World Cup looming closer the West Indian tour is creating a lotta buzz. Sreeram Ramachandran takes a look...

West Indian cricket has been ravaged by the cycles of time. Present generation cricketers are paying taxes levied by the laws of probability for the dominance of their redecessor in the late ‘70s and the ‘80s. The cycle of life dictates that dominance is followed by mediocrity, followed by dominance. But for West Indian cricket this third phase is yet to come. Somewhere along the way something went wrong. In their heydays, Ambrose and Walsh would fill the batsmen with dread. Today, no one is afraid of the Caribbean calypso anymore. But at home, however, the West Indians are no pushovers. A semblance of the old spirit lingers.

The Indian team today is like an actor who camouflages his lack of versatility by working only on genres he excels in. For all the chest-thumping renaissance in One Day Cricket, the Indian team's test record is still dubious. Even the one-day wins have come in in the comfort and shelter of home. Ganguly's regime saw a marked improvement in the team's overseas record, but it will take more than a few odd wins here and there to change the fact that playing abroad is India's weakness.

This, essentially, is the crux of the Indian team's tour to the West Indies - a weak team's strength against a strong team's weakness.

Broadly, there are three major variables that will determine how the ODI's and the Tests...

will go:

The Indian Openers
The prolonged search for a wicketkeeper-batsman and an all rounder seems to have found results, although it is still too early to lay safe bets on Dhoni and Pathan's future exploits. But questions about a reliable opening pair still leaves people scratching their heads or shrugging their shoulders.

While the strength of the middle order is significant, historically the Indian team has performed their best only when the openers lay solid platform. From Headlingly in 2002 to Adelaide in 2003-2004 to Rawalpindi two years back, India’s overseas victories have seen at least one of the openers score a solid knock.

The openers have to provide the trampoline for the middle order to jump high.

The discipline of the seam attack
The bowling attack remains the weak spot of a touring Indian team. Indian bowlers are often unable to fully exploit favourable bowling conditions.

Speed, energy, spirit are Sreesanth's strengths, control isn't; banana inswingers are Pathan's strengths, control isn't.

Perhaps due to lack of practice of playing in seaming wickets, or perhaps due to indiscipline of inexperience, or for some other unknown reason, the Indian seam attack has faltered in the past.

Brian Lara
He is 36, he is aging, he has lost most of his old magic (or so it is said), his waistline measures throw up larger numbers than his batting innings. But he’s still capable of turning a series on its head single-handedly, on the strength of his blade.

A Lara thunderstorm at this stage of his career is like a...

tsunami - the odds of it occurring are one in a million, but when it does happen, you can be assured there is nothing that can stop the devastation. With scores of 40 not out and 56 (the latter a savage knock with 10 fours, off 45 balls) in the previous series against Zimbabwe, the master has been threatening to explode. Cricket fans would like nothing better than to see him work the old magic again, although the Indian fans would appreciate it if he could, ahh , alter his priorities a bit and reserve the histrionics for the World Cup next year.