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THE West Indies white-ball skills camp currently underway at Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua is primarily focused on helping regional batsmen counteract one of their biggest downfalls; spin bowling.
So says Phil Simmons, head coach of the Windies senior team, who believes this camp plays an instrumental role in guiding his players to becoming more all-around and consistent batsmen at the T20 and One-Day International levels.
Simmons said they have already held six intense sessions thus far and the player response has been “brilliant.” The bowlers, he said, are also fine-tuning in their respective craft.
“We’ve always had issues with how we score against spin bowling so I think that’s going to be a highlight of the camp. The different ways that we are putting together as a batsman, the different ways you want to score against spin and try and work on those.
“And for the (fast) bowlers, it’s to improve on their yorker bowling mainly. Those are the areas that encompass us during this camp. I think the days that have been had, we’ve got six days of practice so far and it’s been brilliant,” Simmons said.
West Indies have found it tough, recently, to bat out a full 50 over innings against international competition. This, Simmons thinks, is another crucial aspect of their game-play which needs to be worked on, if they are to churn out improved results in the near future.
“I think that we are getting to the stage where, between overs seven to 15 in T20s and overs 11 to 35 in ODIs, where we have been stalled, and that’s why we’re losing so many wickets.
“We’re trying to make sure that we’re not stalled anymore and our scoring ball percentage goes up from 60 per cent, or wherever it is, to 70 per cent.
“So then we would be scoring in that period and we know how strong we can be at 45 to 50 overs (ODI) or our last four overs in a T20. That’s been the scope of how look at things and how we want to improve,” he added.
Simmons affirmed this camp was not focused on fitness but on the skills that need to be enhanced to improve overall competitiveness.
He continued, “With all the batsmen in the middle, they need to be able to continue to rotate the strike as well and to score boundaries here and there to make sure that we get to the position of over 35 to 40, or 40 to 45, or over 50, 60 and 70 (runs)…we can up the tempo because we have wickets in hand and are scoring consistently in those periods.
“With four fieldsmen outside the circle in 50-over cricket, you’ve got to keep scoring because it gets harder when five are outside (the circle).”
The former Windies batsman said there are more white-ball leagues now than before, and he expects the team to improve faster in this format, as compared to red ball (Test) cricket.
In this regard, he lauded the brazen performance by the regional Test team who won the hard-fought three-match series against England 1-0 last month.
“It’s pleasing to know that we’re moving in the right direction. I’m happy with what I’ve seen, with the way we’ve played lately, especially in the last series. But there’s a lot of work to be done so we keep working on it.
“They’ve (test players) made huge progress. For us to be able to understand how to bat on last days to save Test matches and also to be able to understand how we needed to bat in a situation to bat for two days; something which we haven’t done for a while, I think that is progress in itself.
“To me, that was a big pleasure to sit down and watch our batsmen grind out a session and not lose any wickets. There a lot of progress seen from that series,” he said.
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