T&T’s director on the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Baldath Mahabir, while pleased with the direction of the West Indies team at present, is very concerned with the spate of injuries being suffered by the regional players.
West Indies lost the three-Test series to India 2-0 but there were encouraging signs from the young team. “While we lost the series 2-0 there was enough on show to indicate that the team is moving forward. The bowling has been showing some spunk for a while now and what was pleasing was the fact that the batting came on strongly in this series.
“There were some very good scores and although they were not able to do it as consistently as we would like, the improvement was noticeable. It has been quite a while that the team has scored over 400 and over 500 in back-to-back Tests and this is a positive sign. The batting has definitely improved and we look to even better performances in the near future.”
However, a worrying concern for Mahabir is the injuries. “We have had too many players breaking down over the past few seasons. I am particularly worried about two young players in Adrian Barath and Devendra Bishoo. Barath has been battling a hamstring problem for some time and he needs to take a closer look at his body and work on getting to understand what brings on the injury, while he is not playing cricket. It is not only a problem for the WICB. The player has to do what is best for himself and try to work towards eliminating the possibilities of getting injured.
“When you look at Adrian playing you are almost nervous thinking that he would breakdown, so just imagine what he is going through mentally. When a player is injury-prone he cannot be 100 percent confident and this affects his play.”
Turning his attention to Bishoo, Mahabir said :”Bishoo is probably playing too much cricket for his small frame. One needs to look at this and address the situation. During the last innings in the last Test match he could not have been used as the skipper wanted because he came down with an injury.
“We need to take a greater interest in the prevention of injuries, so more often than not we can put out the best team to represent the West Indies.”
