LONDON, England, CMC – West Indies captain Darren Sammy conceded yesterday his side needed to tighten up all areas of their game, following their 10-wicket thumping by England in the opening Twenty20 International of the two-match series.
West Indies posted an inadequate 125 off 19.4 overs and then watched helplessly as England coasted to their target without losing a wicket at the Oval.
With the final game scheduled for tomorrow at the same venue, Sammy said there was a lot of work to be done in order to turn things around.
“We have training tomorrow morning (Saturday) and we will work on all areas,” Sammy said after the defeat.
“We worked hard in the build-up but we did not execute well tonight so we have to put in some more work. Whatever time we can get to try and put systems in place we will use and try to be better on Sunday.
“Things did not go well tonight and we are very disappointed as a team. We know we have to put on a better outing on Sunday night for the people.”
Debutant opener Johnson Charles top scored with 36 and the experienced Dwayne Smith got a stroke-filled 33, as the two put on an entertaining 51 for the first wicket after the Windies were sent in.
Once the duo were dismissed, however, the innings went into decline as eight wickets fell for 28 runs in the space of 36 deliveries.
“We have several areas we have to address and one of the main ones is rotating the strike. This is something that has plagued us also in one one-day (cricket),” Sammy explained.
“We have a lot of boundary hitters in the team, but we have to gather more ones and twos. We get too many dot balls when we bat so we will keep working to correct that.
“In limited-overs cricket it is not just about the boundaries. We have to get better at working the ball into the gaps so that we can keep the score ticking. You can’t get bogged down. That is vital in this fast-pace format.” Sammy said judging from the Windies’ start, they should have posted in excess of 150. “We got a great start from our openers but we let England back into the match and they took it from us,” Sammy noted.
“Smith played well on his return to the team and Charles did a good job in his first opportunity to give us the sort of start we were looking for. When we get such a great start we have to capitalise.
“The other batsmen needed to play better so we could post a challenging target of about 150-plus. We also needed to field much better if we were to give ourselves a chance of winning tonight.
“Credit to England, they bowled well after they broke our opening stand and we never got back into the match.”