Following the T20I series loss to South Africa, head coach Daren Sammy stressed that the West Indies’ chances of claiming a third World Cup title depend crucially on the bowlers delivering a top-level performance.
This performance highlighted an area of concern, as the Windies’ bowlers struggled during the series by taking just 10 wickets across the three matches.
“…Hopefully, we can play a brand of cricket that helps us win. Like I said before, I have a really good feeling.
“I know it’s going to take a massive effort with the ball, but I’m seeing signs that when we execute, and today we executed our plans to different batters more often than not, and that’s something Ravi [Rampaul] has been drilling with the bowling, so I’m looking forward to the World Cup,” Sammy said.
“We have all the plans, but we all know we could have all the plans, especially from a bowling standpoint, but a plan is really good when it’s executed, and we as a bowling group have not really executed well.”
However, Sammy was only encouraged by Saturday’s improved bowling, emphasizing that consistent performances from his bowlers are essential for World Cup success.
In addition to bowling consistency, the head coach also said the team needed to improve its fielding urgently.
“Today I saw more of the execution, what we discussed in team meetings, how we want to bowl to different batters. We have to do that really well.
“We have to take the catches, for sure, we have to take the catches. We can’t keep giving the opposition’s best batsmen one, two, and three chances. We will be punished by that,” Sammy maintained.
Turning to the batting unit heading to the World Cup, Sammy, who was part of the Windies’ World Cup-winning teams in 2012 and 2016, admitted he was pleased with their progress.
Despite losing the series, Sammy said, “I’m happy with how the batting is going, certain areas probably against spin, I’d like to see them rotate some more. In the series against South Africa, I think they were probably averaging around 11, 12 runs an over against our spinners while we were averaging around seven against theirs, and that is something teams would try to use against us.”
“When we were really good in the World Cup in the Caribbean, we had that [Nicholas] Pooran factor in the middle and now Hetty [Shimron Hetmyer] is doing that at number three, and that gives us a way to counteract what the opposition’s spinners bring at us, especially wrist spin and left-arm spin.”
