– Gayle hopes Windies fortunes change today
By Marlon Munroe
Erstwhile cricket powerhouse West Indies, currently two places from the bottom in the ICC rankings, take on last placed Zimbabwe in the first ODI at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence and Captain Chris Gayle hopes that after the disappointing start to the series his team’s fortunes will be changed today.
At his press conference yesterday at the stadium he said he was looking for a fresh start should a win come today.
Gayle’s side recently received a thumping in the series against Australia after Gayle had made a bold prediction that the Caribbean side was going to beat the Aussies 4-1 in the ODI series.
Zimbabwe’s cricket, on the other hand has been plagued and tainted with problems with some of its top players leaving in 2006 and this resulted in the country losing its Test status.
But 24-year-old captain Prosper Utseya said that his team will be going out hard for another win. He had earlier told Stabroek Sport that the win was not only significant for his team but for the fans at home who are behind them.
Utseya, who has 101 ODI matches under his belt, admitted that his team may be young but said they were also confident.
He hopes that the good players will display effective techniques while batting and adapt to the conditions at the stadium, especially after seven batsmen failed to get off the mark at the Queen’s Park Oval on Sunday in the lone Twenty20 encounter.
The West Indies team last won a tournament in 2009 in the Digicel home series against England when the team regained the Frank Worrell Trophy. But this was quickly undermined when the team meekly surrendered the trophy weeks after winning it.
Then followed a strike by the senior players over retainer contracts and other issues between the WICB and WIPA.
This allowed Bangladesh to win a test and one-day series in the Caribbean over a second string team.
New coach Ottis Gibson and his men will enter today’s assignment already with a 26-run loss in the only Twenty20 international against Zimbabwe last Sunday.
Gayle pointed out yesterday that it was disappointing that they had to start on such a sour note but said that the team will be looking to be confident and play good cricket while pointing out that he saw what his opponents have to offer.
“Both teams are currently at a rebuilding phase so it will be competitive out there. We are just above Zimbabwe and respect is due; they have beaten us in the past but hopefully now we can press home an advantage,” Gayle declared.
When Stabroek Sport enquired whether the players, especially the younger players, understand their roles he said that there is constant “chopping and changing” and therefore there is not the scope for them to show their true potential if they are given an actual chance.
“I have been in those situations before and the mindset might not be too right by rejoining a team and then you are in and out. It is a situation that we have to look at and try to correct those areas as quickly as possible so that batsmen can be in the middle with a clear mind and play some good, solid cricket,” Gayle opined.
Gayle said the main focus is to put runs on the board so that his bowlers, whom he said bowled relatively well in patches, may have something to work with. Further, he said the prediction he made in Australia was an isolated one and was garnered to motivate his players to go out there and fight but his team’s motivation this time around is to definitely win the series against Zimbabwe.
On the other hand, he thinks that the younger batsmen need to come and “stamp their authority” and put some pressure on the players who are out with injuries.
Elegant number three batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan and all-rounder Dwayne Bravo are two of the senior players out with injuries.
“Make it difficult for selectors to select a team or squad so if they are given that opportunity then they should actually put their best foot forward and capitalize whether it is with the ball or bat,” Gayle elaborated.
“Definitely we are looking to win the series. We want to start on a winning note and then look to gain momentum. We have also discussed that losing so many matches can be a problem for us and it can be a bit difficult for us to actually get a win under our belt; we need to dig ourselves out of this hole as quickly as possible and try to change things around before we get any worse.
The power hitting opening batsman believes that the Zimbabweans are here to play cricket and said if they play better cricket they deserve to win. On the other hand he stated that he will be leading from the front and he will be playing his role with the bat to give the team the start that is required.
He bluntly said that the top order has not been giving the team good starts and so the middle order had to pull a lot of the weight despite many of the batsmen not stepping up to make the big scores.
