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West Indies batsmen should fare better against India when Friday’s One-Day International (ODI) series opener bowls off at Queen’s Park Oval, Port of Spain from 9.30am (TT time).
So said Phil Simmons, WI head coach, who believes the Oval pitch is a welcomed improvement for the hosts ahead of a nervy three-match series against the number three-ranked ODI nation.
Simmons was responding to questions at Wednesday’s virtual press conference, where much emphasis was placed on the quality of the Oval’s surface.
This comes after scathing criticism from WI ODI captain Nicholas Pooran on the poor quality of Guyana’s Providence Stadium pitch, which he claimed was a crucial factor in the team’s recent 3-0 series loss at the hands of Bangladesh.
Against India, WI play a three-match ODI series at the Oval and then head south to the Brian Lara Cricket Academy, Tabouba for the venue’s first, T20 international.
Altogether, five T20Is will be played with two at Warner Park, St Kitts and two at Central Broward Regional Park Stadium, Florida.
Simmons visited both venues in Trinidad and was satisfied with what he saw.
“The first difference is the surface here looks like some work has been put into it and it’s been prepared. It looks good. The two wickets that we’re going to play these three games on look really good the last couple days we’ve been there. We’ll wait and see how they play on Friday,” he said.
The coach expects a better display with the bat from his team, which failed to fire against the Bangladeshi and resulted in low, losing scores of 149/9. 108 and 178 respectively on the Providence pitch.
“We expect a better batting performance. We don’t want to make excuses. In the last game (against Bangladesh), we showed what we should have shown in the first two games, not hiding the fact they were bad cricket wickets on the whole.
“But we expect different. The wickets look good. Yes it’s a stronger (Indian) bowling team but we expect better batting performances from the squad,” he said.
So far, the regional squad has put in two intense batting sessions at the north venue. He’s pleased with his players’ efforts thus far and confirmed that “the guys seem to be switched on again”.
He still believes WI has the firepower to take on the mighty India team, who are without the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah for the ODI series. Bumrah will feature for the T20.
“I think that we have batsmen who can bat and bat for long periods. It’s just about putting things together and making that the batting holds strong. We have guys at the top.
“Shai Hope has played Test cricket, Kyle Mayers play Test cricket and you can’t question Pooran’s batting, he showed it in the last (match against Bangladesh). We have guys who bat long but it’s just about putting it together in an ODI scenario,” he added.
Simmons emphasized the importance of batting out the entire 50-over innings.
“The main thing is how we bat our 50 overs, and that’s coming over as clear as daylight. We have to bat our 50 overs and we have to put innings and partnerships together. Someone always has to be scoring a 100 to hold the team together.
“The bowling and fielding have been improving daily. We rank ourselves right now very high in the fielding. Yes, people might say we should have gotten more wickets (against Bangladesh) but we always bowled on the better half of the wicket,” he closed.
WI ODI Team: Nicholas Pooran (captain), Shai Hope (vice-captain), Shamarh Brooks, Keacy Carty, Jason Holder, Akeal Hosein, Alzarri Joseph, Brandon King, Kyle Mayers, Gudakesh Motie, Keemo Paul, Rovman Powell, Jayden Seales. Reserves: Romario Shepherd, Hayden Walsh Jr.
INDIA ODI Team: Shikhar Dhawan (captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Hooda, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson, Shardul Thakur, Yuzvendra Chahal, Avesh Khan, Prasidh Krishna, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh.
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