5 West Indies players to watch out for in the Test matches vs India

After a hard-fought English tour, India now faces West Indies in a two-Test match series. This series will be key for India as they head to Australia in November, this series is the right one for India to fix some key issues before heading to Australia.

On the other hand, West Indies in the past 12 months have shown some good promises by winning a Test against England in Leeds and by sweeping Bangladesh 2-0 in July this year.

Indians are not going with their best squad, by resting Bumrah, Bhuvi and Ishant, the Indians are trying to find their best possible backup seamer. This will be a good contest to witness as the young guns from both teams go head to head. Here are the five West Indies players to watch out for

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#5 Devendra Bishoo

For a visiting team to win a series in India, the team requires good spinners and the batsmen who can play spin well in their arsenal. Bishoo is one of the experienced spinners for the West Indies. We know the amount of success that leg-spinners are getting in the recent years especially in the subcontinent this makes Bishoo the man to watch out for.

Bishoo has picked 106 wickets in 32 Test matches. Since his debut in 2011, he has been in and out of the side and was not been able to keep a permanent place in the side.

Bishoo in the last 12 months has been in good form picking up 17 wickets in 6 matches at an average of 29.82. He had a great outing in Zimbabwe where he picked up 13 wickets in 2 matches, the conditions in Zimbabwe were spinner friendly similar to Indian conditions.

Bishoo in the last two years has played 3 matches in Asia and has picked up 18 wickets. He took 8 wickets in an innings against Pakistan in Dubai in 2016 where Bishoo just swept Pakistan's batting lineup.

So the spinner friendly conditions that India tracks offer will excite Bishoo and he will be hopeful that he can get past this relatively new Indian batting lineup. Bishoo will definitely be Holder's 'main man'.

#4 Kemar Roach

Early wickets with the new ball are always handy. Kemar Roach is the right candidate to pick up early wickets. Indians have to watch out for Roach, he will try to run through the Indian top order as the Indians will have a new opening combo. Roach bowls at an express pace and can surprise anyone.

Roach will play a crucial role with the old ball too when the reverse swing comes into the picture. With his pace and if the ball reverses then he will definitely be a treat for the Indians. Roach has picked up 163 wickets he looked in good shape before he broke his shoulder in 2014.

After coming back from injury from April 2015 to February 2016 he played 8 matches and picked up just 9 wickets. Then he was out of the side for a year and a half and returned to the national side for England tour where he picked up 11 wickets and a fifer at lords.

Since the tour of England, he played 8 matches and picked by 30 wickets. He has been in great form recently. He picked up 5 wickets for 8 runs against Bangladesh this July, he just blew away the Bangladesh top order and in the second innings, he pulled his hamstring. It will be interesting to see how he operates in this series.

#3 Kraigg Brathwaite

The 25-year-old will lead the West Indies batting order and the first test of the tour on October 4 will be his 50th test match. Brathwaite is an experienced campaigner, he has been in India before knows the conditions well and that will definitely come in handy. He has a good defence and especially in India were the grips, spin a solid defence will help.

He is known for scoring big runs ones he settles down, he has already scored a double ton. He is in a scintillating form he scored two tons against Bangladesh and has had a good county season too. He also scored an unbeaten 52 in the warm game against Indian Board President's XI. His style of batting breaks the bowlers down and makes them try something different and that's when he scores.

He is a handy off-break bowler too, he has the best figures of 6/29 in an innings that came against Sri Lanka. He has been in good form in the last two years scoring 1377 runs at an average of 44. In the last two years, he has played three games in the subcontinent and has scored 328 runs at an average of 82. Brathwaite will play the anchor role and others will play around him.

#2 Shai Hope:

Shai Hope and Brathwaite will be the two pillars of the West Indies batting lineup in this series. Shai Hope has had a good run in recent times and has been named the West Indies male cricketer of the year 2018. It took some time for him to succeed in International grounds after scoring a double ton against Windward Islands team in the domestic circuit that caught the eye of the selectors.

He just played 14 first matches before earning his maiden test match call. He made his debut in 2015 against England. He averaged just 16 in his first 10 matches, he failed to prove his talent and was under pressure of losing his spot in the national setup. Then came the England tour where he took West Indies to a famous victory in Leeds scoring two centuries in both the innings (147 & 118*).

Hope in the last two years has scored more than 1000 runs at an average of 37. He has played just played 3 matches in the subcontinent and has not had a successful outing, he has an average of 20 in Asia. Shai Hope will be hoping to reverse the fortunes in this series.

#1 Jason Holder

The West Indies captain Jason Holder will play a crucial role this series for West Indies not only with the ball but also with the bat. This will be his first test series in India. He and Kemar Roach will look to break through the strong Indian top order with the new ball. The tall and lanky 6'7 bowler will try to extract some bounce if there is any bounce on offer.

Holder in the last two years has been in good form both with the bat and ball. He has scored 805 runs in the last couple of years at an average of 33.5 and has scored a century too in that period. He picked up 59 wickets in the last 24 months at an average of 22.37 which includes 4 fifers.

He has played 3 matches in Asia prior to this series and has done reasonably well in those 3 matches. He has a batting average of 41 in Asia and has picked up 9 wickets in 3 matches that he played in Asia. Holder will mostly bat down the order especially with the tail. The number of runs that he can score with the tail will be crucial. We saw how crucial were the runs scored by lower order was in India's tour of England.

It will be interesting to see how he goes on with his captaincy because he will be leading his side for the first time in the test matches in India. Holder will be hoping to have a good outing.