India look for finishing touches in warm up game against Windies

Montego Bay, Jamaica, Mar 8 (UNI) India will be hoping that some of their key players would sort out a few chinks and find their groove as they take on hosts West Indies in their last World Cup warm-up matches at the Trelawny stadium tomorrow.

It would also be an opportunity to learn some clues from the opposite camp as they are expected to meet the same opponents in the later stages of the tournament.

Openers Sourav Ganguly and Virender Sehwag were far from convincing against an inexperienced Dutch bowling attack in the first practice game though the pitch favoured seam bowling initially.

Both the batsmen were undone by poor shots and they would need to spend more time in the middle than the 10-odd overs they lasted in the first warm-up match, more so after captain Rahul Dravid asked the top order not to throw away wickets after settling down.

Dravid, who top-scored with a well-compiled 74 in the 182-run victory over the Netherlands, had asked his batsmen to finish matches after being set as it would not be esay for new batsman to immediately find the groove and rotate strike.

''The wickets are expected to be a bit slow. In tighter and closer games, the one batsman who gets set on these wickets will have to go on.

''In this tournament we will see (only) one or two big scores in each innings,'' Dravid had said.

The Indian team management would also like to see Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik get some runs under their belts.

Two hard-hitters Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni would be itching for extra overs and time in the middle.

West Indies have also issues of their own and recuperating Ramnaresh Sarwan is in urgent need of some runs.

Captain Brian Lara too returns to the side after missing out against Kenya and he sure wants to set the agenda for the World Cup.

All other three warm-up games are also between heavyweights.

Australia take on England at Kingstown in St Vincent; Pakistan go up against South Africa in St Augustine, Trinidad; and New Zealand square up against Sri Lanka in Bridgetown, Barbados.

UNI