India to host West Indies and Sri Lanka

As a part of their World Cup build-up plans, India will host West Indies and Sri Lanka for a series of one-day internationals in January and February. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the itinerary yesterday for a total of eight matches, four each against West Indies and Sri Lanka.

India host West Indies in the first leg of the series, with the first ODI on January 21 at Nagpur. The next two games, at Cuttack and Chennai, will be day-night matches. Sri Lanka will play a warm-up game in Mumbai on February 6 before their first game at Pune two days later.

West Indies' will have happy memories of their last bilateral one-day series in India, in 2002-03, when the triumphed in a thrilling seven-match rubber. Sri Lanka, though, will not have too many fond memories of their trip last year when India thumped them 6-1. However, next year's series promises a fair amount of needle with both teams, who're slotted in the same World Cup pool, trying to gain the advantage before the big event.

Jan 21 1st ODI Nagpur
Jan 24 2nd ODI Cuttack (d/n)
Jan 27 3rd ODI Chennai (d/n)
Jan 30 4th ODI Baroda

Feb 6 Warm-up match Mumbai
Feb 8 1st ODI Pune
Feb 11 2nd ODI Rajkot
Feb 14 3rd ODI Goa
Feb 17 4th ODI Vizag