A two-week training camp is currently being held at the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua. In recent times, the West Indies have been unable to play much of the required 50 overs in ODIs and have suffered a number of defeats.
With this in mind, head coach Simmons said that batting is a major focus of the training camp.
“I think we’re getting to the stage where between overs seven and 15 in T20s and overs 11 to 35 in ODIs is where we’re being stalled, and that’s why we’re losing too many wickets.”
“So we’re trying to make sure we’re not stalled anymore and our scoring board percentage goes up from 60 per cent, or wherever it is, to 70 per cent so that we would be scoring in that period.”
He also mentioned about the further strengthening in 40-50 overs,
“And we know how strong we can be at 40 to 50 overs or over the last four overs in a T20, so that’s been the scope of how we look at things and how we want to improve.”
Further commenting
“The thing with all the batsmen in the middle — whether it be Bonner, whether it be Pooran, whether it be whoever is batting in the middle — is that they need to able to continue to rotate the strike as well as to score boundaries here and there to make sure that when we get to the position of overs 35 to 40 or 40 to 45, or overs 15, 16, 17 in T20s that we can up the tempo because we have wickets in hand and have been scoring consistently in those periods.”
Simmons said he was pleased with the discipline and attitude of all those who attended the camp.
“I think the pleasing thing here is the attitude because just to drill and drill on things … it’s not easy to do, but their attitude here has been great.”
In my opinion I think there are some more important issues that needs close attention in the short version of the game such as RUNNING BETWEEN THE WICKET. We seem to be looking for too much boundaries and not occupying the crease which could add some 20 runs or more to the score and sometimes ended up lost the game by just a few runs.