West indies Test Captain Kraigg Brathwaite has identified the preparing critical for his Test side to face difficult tour of Australia.
West Indies had faced a long break from the Test format, their next series, a two-Test affair, will be in Australia. and Brathwaite said preparation during long break period would be pivotal to his side’s performance.
“For sure we’ll have some camps in-between. We’re going to Australia [who use] Kookaburra balls, so I think using those balls in those camps is important,” he pointed out.
“So I just think those specific camps throughout that period is important. We have a 50-over regional tournament in October, there’s an A-team tour in November, hopefully, so I think that will be good to get some guys going on that tour of South Africa.
“I would say a mixture of camps and… obviously some of the guys have local cricket back home on weekend, so you can’t take that for granted, but it’s a mixture of those.”
The 30-year-old opener, who has played 87 Tests and scored over 5,000 runs, said any preparation needed to be specific to the challenges which awaited West Indies Down Under.
“The key for us is when we get back home [after this series] is that we work on our strengths and our weaknesses,” he stressed.
“We know we’re coming up against Australia in six months time and we know their bowlers.
“So we as batsmen have to work out – along with the coaches – how we want to score runs against them and the challenge is going to be with the new ball and the inswing… we know that’s going to happen.
“The guys will be bowling above 85 miles per hour, pitches are good for batting, [they have] good bounce – obviously way different to the Caribbean. But they are pitches which our batsmen can enjoy more because they can play through the line.
“I think we have the talent here, it’s just [what we do] when we get home in-between the T20 tournaments and 50-over tournaments to prepare for Test cricket, and along with management we will have that discussion over that next couple of weeks.”
Discussions since the Dominica Test have centered around the quality of Caribbean pitches, especially after veteran off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin finished with a 12-wicket match haul.
And Brathwaite said there was a need for “good cricket pitches” which would help the improvement of both batsmen and bowlers.