West Indies openers start brightly

Netherlands v West Indies, Group B, World Cup 2011, Delhi

Miller picked, Netherlands field

Devon Smith

Chris Gayle

Netherlands landed an early blow in what could be a sparky encounter in Delhi by winning the toss and opting to field first against West Indies. Shunning the bat-first formula that almost worked against England, they have backed their batsmen to chase against a West Indies team vulnerable in a competitive Group B.

When the groups for the tournament were announced West Indies were identified as the one of the big nine Test nations that could exit early. Netherlands and Ireland have proved they are not the Associate pushovers of Group A's Kenya and Canada and, on home turf, Bangladesh look capable of sinking a fellow Test team.

West Indies had a miserable start against South Africa, and suffered a further blow with news that their bright allrounder Dwayne Bravo will fly home with injury. Nikita Miller has come in as a replacement for this game, while Netherlands are unchanged from the team that gave England a scare.

Netherlands: 1 Alexei Kervezee, 2 Wesley Barresi (wk), 3 Tom Cooper, 4 Ryan ten Doeschate, 5 Bas Zuiderent, 6 Tom de Grooth, 7 Peter Borren (capt), 8 Mudassar Bukhari, 9 Pieter Seelaar, 10 Bernard Loots, 11 Berend Westdijk.

West Indies: 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Devon Smith, 3 Darren Bravo, 4 Ramnaresh Sarwan, 5 Shivnarine Chanderpaul, 6 Kieron Pollard, 7 Devon Thomas (wk), 8 Darren Sammy (capt), 9 Sulieman Benn, 10 Nikita Miller, 11 Kemar Roach.

Sahil Dutta is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo