Play starts Sunday 0400 BST
Specialist opener Sachin Tendulkar will bat in the middle order in the first one-day international against the West Indies in Nagpur on Sunday.
"The middle overs in the World Cup will be crucial and who is better to play that role for us than Tendulkar?" said India's captain Rahul Dravid.
"He is an option that we need to explore in the middle order."
Tendulkar is the world's highest scorer in one-day internationals with 14,537 runs and 40 centuries.
"We realise that finding a good middle-order batsman is harder than finding someone to open. Our best players need to play in the middle order," said Dravid.
India, who have won just two of their last 10 one-dayers, are struggling ahead of the World Cup, to be held in the West Indies in March and April.
They play four matches against the West Indies and another four against Sri Lanka at home next month.
"We have a psychological advantage and we just want to continue with it"
Brian Lara
The poor performance forced the selectors to drop opener Virender Sehwag and all-rounder Irfan Pathan for the first two games against the West Indies.
Much focus will be on former captain Sourav Ganguly, returning to the one-day side after a 16-month absence.
He will open the innings with Gautam Gambhir in Sunday's match.
West Indies captain Brian Lara said his team would try to maintain their recent supremacy over India.
He said: "We have a psychological advantage and we just want to continue with it."
West Indies, who reached the Champions Trophy final in India last November, are touring without injured batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan and fast bowler Corey Collymore.
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