Indian, Windies stars look to rock US as ICC eyes new market

Fort Lauderdale (US), Aug 26 (PTI) Cricket will seek toreach out to the untapped American market when the sport’smost followed practitioners, India, lock horns with the WestIndies in their maiden international game in the US heretomorrow. The two Twenty20 Internationals over the weekend will bethe first instance of India being involved in a competitivematch in the USA. Days after India cruised to victory in the four-matchTest series for their second successive triumph on theCaribbean soil, the team’s seasoned campaigner Mahendra SinghDhoni will return to lead the side in the two limited oversgames at the Central Broward Regional Park, the onlypurpose-built cricket stadium in the US. It is the only ICC certified ODI standard stadiumfacility in the USA and hosted six Caribbean Premier Leaguematches last month. The 14-member Indian team will see the return of as manyas 11 regular players who were rested from the tour toZimbabwe in May earlier this year. Dhoni, who retired from the longest format of the game inDecember 2014, is scheduled to play just seven more matches in2016 — two T20Is against the West Indies in USA and 5 ODIsagainst New Zealand in India. Dhoni’s last assignment was against Zimbabwe where he leda young Indian team, sans the stars, to victory in both theODIs and T20I series in Harare in June. The two-match series is going to be the first of whatwill develop into an annual event in the USA as part ofefforts to reach out to new markets and audiences. Even though India won the Test series 2-0, players fromthe Test squad are coming with hardly any recent matchpractice because of the rain-affected fourth Test inPort-of-Spain where the last four days didn’t see any play. Indian coach Anil Kumble was, however, still optimisticabout a good performance in what will be his first assignmentwith Dhoni. "This is the first time that I’ll be working with MS,obviously we have played together over a long period of timeand we had a chat yesterday and today as well," Kumble said. "I’m really looking forward to working with him and thenew set of boys like (Jasprit) Bumrah who’s joined as well.I’ve worked with him in the IPL so it’s nice to be a part ofthe India dressing room again," he added. PTI AH PMPM