West Indies team skips practice, pre-match briefing

Kochi: The West Indies cricket team on Tuesday skipped its final pre-match practice session and the press conference that was to follow, creating quite a stir ahead of the first One-day International against India here on Wednesday.

Hosts India and the West Indies will commence the five-match ODI series from Wednesday.

Even as the scribes sought to know the reason behind the miss, official sources said "perhaps their team management meeting was still continuing and that should be the reason for their not showing up at the ground".

The visiting side was scheduled to have a training session from 13:00 hrs followed by a media briefing at 16:00 hrs at the Nehru Stadium. The West Indies team management did not give any reasons for turning up.

The Cup unveiling ceremony is slated for today evening and the Dwayne Bravo-led West Indies team is supposed to be present. The BCCI sources were not aware if the organisers of the series had received any communication from the visiting side as far as turning up for the Cup unveiling ceremony was concerned.
Tickets for tomorrow's match are said to have been sold out according to the organisers.

India will seek to reaffirm their supremacy in the shorter version of the game as they go into the series against an under-strength West Indies, sans Sunil Narine, with the prime focus of preparing for the upcoming ODI World Cup.