Thirty-six years ago India's cricket changed forever after they defeated West Indies in the final of the World Cup. Today, the two teams battle again with the West Indies hoping that a win against their opponents can change their fortunes in this tournament.
A win against the unbeaten Indians can give the West Indies an outside chance of making it into the semi-finals if they follow-up with victories over Sri Lanka on July 1 and Afghanistan three days later.
India has played five games with four wins and a no-result. They have nine points and are heavily fancied to join Australia in the semis. West Indies, on the other hand, have only three points from six matches and need nothing short of a miracle to get into the knockout stages of the tournament.
West Indies held their training session at the Old Trafford ground yesterday and they are looking forward to their final three matches. "In terms of the squad, I think everybody's upbeat for the occasion. Playing India is always a big game for the West Indies, and we're looking forward to it. First, we need to finish the campaign as best as we can. And our objective is to win all three games.
"I think at the start of this tournament we all match up, every single team. And most captains say that; it's a competition where (indiscernible) play good cricket on any given day, anyone can beat anyone. And it's just a matter of us putting together a complete game. We've shown glimpses here and there what we can produce. And as a side, we just haven't brought it together collectively more often than not. And it's hurt us in games before. So tomorrow is another opportunity for us to bring it all together and play a perfect game."
West Indies have been hampered by the loss of Andre Russell who is out of the World Cup with his knee problems. In fact, he had surgery on the knee yesterday and reported that it was successful.
Another player fighting to be ready to play against the Indians is opening batsman Evin Lewis. He came off the field against New Zealand with a strained calf muscle and had to bat at number eight. Holder said that a decision on him playing will be made this morning.
"Evin had a scan and nothing showed up. He trained today. I guess we'll make an assessment tomorrow morning and we'll see how he pulls up."
Holder said that the string of losses has been playing on the mind of his players and they want to go out there and put an end to it. "It's been two crushing defeats. And we felt them drastically over the past couple of days. But it's a situation where learning must take place. I think it's significant for everybody just to draw on their own resources and look at themselves in the mirror and try to make sure that learning takes place.
"And it's a matter of us just to keep going. There's no point to drop our heads. We've got three games left in this campaign and we've got to just win all three games.
"Firstly, as I said, we've had some close games in our World Cup campaign so far. And it just shows with us playing a few more scenarios a bit better, who knows what the result could have been. We look back on the games that we've played and we definitely didn't seize crucial moments in certain games.
"If you put it into the perspective of the teams that are doing well, they're doing those good things and seizing crucial moments within the game. That's what's required in the tournament such as this one. We just didn't take the crucial moments in previous games. We've had lots of close encounters. I think with the exception of the game where we were outplayed by England, I think all the other games we've been in them with a chance to win them, but we didn't seize crucial moments in those games."
Teams: West Indies: Jason Holder (Captain), Chris Gayle (Vice Captain), Fabian Allen, Sunil Ambris, Carlos Brathwaite, Darren Bravo, Sheldon Cottrell, Shannon Gabriel, Shimron Hetmyer, Shai Hope, Evin Lewis, Ashley Nurse, Nicholas Pooran, Kemar Roach, Oshane Thomas.
India: Virat Kohli (capt), Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Rishabh Pant, MS Dhoni (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Vijay Shankar, Rohit Sharma, Kuldeep Yadav.
WEST INDIES VS INDIA WORLD CUP HEAD TO HEAD
1979 - West Indies won by 9 wkts.
1983 - India won by 34 runs.
1983 - West Indies won by 66 runs.
1983 - India won by 43 runs.
1992 - West Indies won by 5 wkts.
1996 - India won by 5 wkts.
2011 - India won by 80 runs.
2015 - India won by 4 wkts.