West Indies will look to call the shots and continue their dominance over Zimbabwe when the two teams meet in the opening contest of the two-match Test Series on Tuesday at the historic Kensington Oval. A victory over the visitors would make it five Test wins in a row for West Indies following last year’s triumphs over New Zealand in the Caribbean and overseas over Bangladesh.

West Indies beat New Zealand by nine wickets at the Vivian Richards Cricket Ground in Antigua last July and a week later won by five wickets at Sabina Park in Jamaica. Last November, they beat Bangladesh by 77 runs in Dhaka and then had an easy 10-wicket victory in Khulna.

The return of Marlon Samuels from injury will bring a lift to the West Indies team for the upcoming two-match Test Series against Zimbabwe. The classy top-order batsman was out of the game with a facial injury, but made a successful comeback with a stroke-filled half-century for Sagicor West Indies High Performance Centre against Zimbabwe in a three-day fixture.

West Indies Head Coach Ottis Gibson welcomed his return and also backed experienced opener Chris Gayle to break out of his recent slump and come good in the upcoming matches.

I must confess I'm a huge Virender Sehwag fan. While his impeccable ability to get himself out time and again regularly frustrates me, his mere presence at the crease is enough to force me to drop everything else I do and just watch cricket. He's the one cricketer in the Indian team who has the ability to change the complexion of a game by just spending 30 minutes at the crease and quite simply takes Test cricket in particular to a level at which you dare not miss a single ball.

However, the reality of playing competitive sports is that no one is guaranteed a place in any side. You need to earn your spot on merit, and your past glories can only take you so far. The BCCI's announcement today that Sehwag had been dropped from the squad for the remaining two test matches against Australia would not have surprised anyone, and the fact that they have a readymade replacement in Shikhar Dhawan already in the squad and don't need to pick another player means it could have even been choreographed to the extent that the selectors were waiting for him to fail so that they could hand over the mantle to Dhawan.

Indian players have reaped the rewards for an innings and 135 runs win over Australia in the second Test in Hyderabad by making a charge on the latest Reliance ICC Test Player Rankings, which were released on Tuesday. The biggest gains have been made by batsman Cheteshwar Pujara and off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who have achieved their career-best rankings in batting and bowling respectively.

Pujara, named player of the match for his double-century in the second Test, has jumped 12 places to a career-best 11th position, while Ashwin, who had match figures of six for 104, is now at a best-ever eighth spot, having jumped three positions.