'Both teams rely on experience to pull through' - King

Bennett King, the coach of West Indies, has hit on the experience factor in both his side and India as they battle it out in the five-match one-day international series. King, with a relatively young and inexperienced squad, summed up the series as one that would rely on senior players to pull through.

"Both teams rely on experience to pull through and probably are also the teams who have inexperienced bowling attacks, so that way it has been pretty similar from them so far," King told Press Trust of India. King singled out Brian Lara's role in West Indies' series-levelling win at Kingston, too: "[Brian] Lara has a lot of experience and what I like about him is that he believes in taking risks. Such things add a lot of value."

King termed working with the present West Indies team as both an exhilarating and frustrating experience. "These guys are wonderful athletes. I mean, we have four or five cricketers who are exceptional in terms of movement across the ground," he said. "And it is not just cricket, even those in rugby rate a few of our players who are better than even them. Dwayne Smith for instance is once in a lifetime athlete. He brings a lot of value to the side in the field. He is only 21, so in terms of experience he is still a puppy."

As for the bowling, King said there was room for improvement in a side he judged would stay pretty much the same for next year's World Cup. "Edwards' pace is down a bit but he can be a handful. Jerome Taylor can swing the ball and Bradshaw has been good but still we have some work to do in this area," he said. "It's more or less the key but there are a few players outside this mix who we are keeping our eyes on. But World Cup is still nine months away and things can change."

Both King and Ramnaresh Sarwan, whose unbeaten 98 proved the fulcrum of West Indies' innings in the previous match, stressed on the batting and sluggish pitches in the Caribbean as the reason for low-scoring contests. "We lost early wickets in Sabina Park the other day and ended up around 200. Other teams would still have gone up to 250, so that's the area where we need to work upon," was King's take, while Sarwan added: "I personally feel a total of 260-270 is going to be a good total on the Caribbean pitches."