The fact that the team required less than six days to complete the 2-0 series victory over the men from the Caribbean showed the extent of their dominance.
As the Men in Blue cross swords against the same opponents in the first ODI of the three-match series at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium on Thursday, they would be keen to extend their stranglehold over their rivals.
More importantly, Indian skipper MS Dhoni has already set his sights on building a team for the next World Cup to be played in Australia and New Zealand in 2015.
Though the premier ODI tournament is still a year and half away, Dhoni showed that he was willing to experiment in the ODI series against Australia by promoting Suresh Raina to No. 4 in the batting order and dropping Yuvraj Singh to No. 5.
He justified his decision by saying that the team needs to find a back up for Yuvraj at No. 4. The experiment didn't meet with the desired results and it was the combined batting might of India's top order that saw them prevail.
Raina had scores of 39, 17, 16 and 28 in the four innings against Australia while Yuvraj had dismal looking figures of 7, 0, 0 and 12 in the series. The two basically came unstuck against the short-pitched stuff unleashed by Mitchell Johnson and Co.
Though the West Indies don't have a seamer of the quality of Johnson, the likes of Ravi Rampaul, Jason Holder and Tino Best would be keen to test both Raina and Yuvraj with more short-pitched bowling.
The Indian skipper is hopeful that both Yuvraj and Raina would be back among the runs but wasn't willing to reveal his cards on who would bat at No. 4.
"It is important that both get plenty of runs. The No. 4 and No. 5 spots are very important but in ODIs we don't generally give permanent slots to batsmen in the middle order. We may shuffle the batting order according to the requirements of the game," said Dhoni.
Most of the Indian bowlers were treated with disdain in the series against Australia. The team management would be looking for a better performance from the attack. Shami and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar will share the new ball. Mohit Sharma has replaced Ishant Sharma in the squad and the third seamer's spot could be a toss up between him and Jaydev Unadkat.
Ground: The pitch has shown a tendency to slow down as the match progresses and teams batting second have found it difficult to chase.
Weather: Thunderstorms and rain in the evening threaten to play spoilsport in Kochi.
Numbers game:
1: In case of a hundred, Chris Gayle, having recorded four in 35 innings, would be the first batsman to register five tons in India-WI ODIs. Tendulkar also has four tons, in 39 innings, vs WI.
1: One more century stand and Indian opening pair of Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma will set a new world record for the most three-figure stands in a calendar year. The duo has been associated in six century partnerships this year and will surpass the record which they share with Ganguly & Tendulkar, who achieved this feat in 2007.
3: Three more wickets and Ravindra Jadeja will become the highest wicket-taker in this calendar year. In 28 matches, he has 46 scalps at an average of 22.86 and economy rate of 4.21. He will surpass Saeed Ajmal's existing tally of 48 wickets in 25 games.
9: Number of runs required by Shikhar Dhawan (991 at an average of 55.05 in 20 matches) to become the sixth batsman to complete 1,000 runs in ODIs this year. Misbah-ul-Haq (1119), George Bailey (1098), Rohit Sharma (1071), Kumar Sangakkara (1033) and Virat Kohli (1033) are the others to have got there in 2013.
-Anant Gaundalkar and Rajesh Kumar
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