THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Pressing issues like giving more game time to young names and the continued assessment of the preparedness of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli will feature high on India's list during the three-match ODI series against the West Indies, beginning here on Sunday, with the shadow of ICC World Cup 2027 looming larger.
India are scheduled to play between 14 to 20 ODIs (if a planned series vs SA before WC happens as per plan) ahead of the global showpiece, and they would want to make each one of them count to travel to South Africa with a settled 15.
It demands a three-layered approach.
The first point will be to keep someone like Yashasvi Jaiswal in the 50-over scheme of things Jaiswal played three matches against Afghanistan, largely because of the absence of injured Kohli, which forced skipper Shubman Gill to bat a slot down the order at No.3.
But in the ensuing one-day against England, Gill reclaimed his opening slot after Kohli's return but the whole sequence meant that Jaiswal was not even included in the squad.
Now that the left-hander has returned for this series, partially because Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan are in Japan for the Asian Games duty, the management will think hard whether to pair him again with Rohit from match one or continue with the Rohit-Gill combination.
That brings us to Rohit.
Rohit temporarily shushed the clamour around his future with a typically marauding hundred against England at the Lord's.
More than anyone else, Rohit will be keen to carry on and stitch some more big scores because, more than anyone else, he will be aware that daggers will be out again in the first instance of a failure.
In contrast, Kohli stands on a firmer ground and will be eager to score 51 runs to become the second batter to score 15000 ODI runs after Sachin Tendulkar.
The way both Kohli and Rohit batted fluently for some 20 minutes at the nets here on Friday evening could be taken as a sign of their hunger.
Then there are pacers like Gurnoor Brar and Auqib Nabi who have been impressive at various levels of late.
But they are still a few miles away from being finished products, and that makes it mandatory for them to have more real match experience under their belt.
Bowling coach Morne Morkel too stressed on that point the other day, and Brar would also certainly want to improve his economy rate which at present hovers around seven.
Reddy's role ========= The news of Hardik Pandya's fresh injury might have come as a dampener for all concerned, but that has also increased the significance of Nitish Kumar Reddy finding his range in top level cricket in white ball formats.
While his batting has more of a rounded touch about it, Reddy's bowling is still a work in progress.
The 23-year-old is yet to bowl 10 overs across six ODIs and he could just get a chance to go through the full spell in this rubber.
Morkel underlined the importance of Reddy developing that long-spell skill.
It will be great for Indian cricket if we can develop him, keep on developing him and for him to compete for that all-rounder spot.
He's got all the talent and all the ability to do that. Luckily we do have a bit of time now, said Morkel.
He always wants to be the guy that wants to create opportunities and having that mindset is fantastic.
For us it's just again important to manage him quite well, to give him quite a simple role in terms of what he needs to go and do for the team," he added.
From the West Indies perspective, they should forget the disappointment of losing back-to-back home ODI series against New Zealand and Sri Lanka by close margins.
They are also dealing with a recent 25 per cent pay cut announced by Cricket West Indies to bring in "financial stability.
The tourists rising above these off and on field obstacles will determine the competitive nature of the series.
