India vs West Indies Statistical Preview: Can India continue their World Cup winning streak?

India will take on West Indies at Perth on March 6. These two sides have met each other seven times before in the World Cup. [caption id=“attachment_1756339” align=“alignnone” width=“380”]  Mohammed Shami. BCCI[/caption] Interestingly, India have enjoyed an upper hand over West Indies in their World Cup campaigns – winning four games out of seven games so far. It was India under Kapil Dev that ended the Caribbean stranglehold on the Cup in 1983. In 2011, India faced West Indies in a World Cup match for the first time in 15 years. Indian skipper Dhoni won the toss and chose to bat first against the Darren Sammy-led West Indies. India suffered the first setback when they lost Sachin Tendulkar for two runs. But they manage to salvage the match after a century from Yuvraj Singh (113) and then youngster Virat Kohli (59) helped India post a challenging 268 on board. Zaheer Khan’s three wicket haul coupled with Yuvraj and R Ashwin’s shared four between them, helped India win by a solid 80-run margin. Tomorrow’s match is sure to be another cracker.

Recent form (Last 10 ODIs) – most recent listed first India: W,W, W, L, NR, L, L, W, W, W (6 wins, 3 losses, 1 no result) West Indies: L, W, W, L, L, W, L, L, L, L (3 wins, 7 losses) West Indies enjoy an upper hand over India in overall head to head tally, but apart from the decade of 1980s India have been better of the two sides and the gap is only widening as can be seen from the following table:

No one seems to have noticed it, but it is quite remarkable that MS Dhoni has captained India in two World Cups and has lost only one match so far. The sole defeat came against South Africa at Nagpur in last edition. One more win and Dhoni will equal Kapil Dev’s Indian record of most wins in World Cup. Among all captains, who have captained their respective sides in 10 or more matches in the World Cup, only two players have a higher win-percentage than Dhoni. They are: Australia’s Ricky Ponting and West Indies’ Clive Lloyd.

India have now won seven consecutive matches in the World Cup. This is India’s second longest winning streak in the World Cup. They had won eight on the trot under Sourav Ganguly in the 2003 edition.