West Indies Women arrived in Guyana on Monday for their final three T20 internationals against India Women and after losing the first two of the five-match series Assistant Coach Rayon Griffith is adamant that the team needs to play better cricket.
Speaking exclusively to this newspaper during their practice session at the National Stadium, Providence yesterday, when asked about what needs to be done for the team to come back to winning ways, Griffith responded, “We have to bat and we have to bowl and field as well, we have to simply come and play better cricket than the opposition.”
Looking at the two previous matches, Griffith said that the side has outlined where they came up short and has been working on it since, reflecting especially on the side’s batting. West Indies Women have scored 101 and 103 respectively in the two matches so far. “We know where we came up short and we worked on that, we didn’t bat well, even if you look at the Indians they had a good first game scoring 185, I think they really batted well, they outplayed us…Coming into this game we know those are already past so at the moment we are focusing on what we have to do, we have to keep believing in ourselves and get that energy back,” the Assistant Coach said.
The former Guyana fast bowler posited that the side is young but is learning very fast, however he was wary of the importance of the first match and called on the senior players to step up.
“We haven’t mastered everything as yet, it’s a young squad, they are learning and we do have some senior players who have been playing a while now, I believe one or two have to put their hands up so that other young players can gain from them,” he stated.
This is the first time in over five years that four or more Guyanese are featured in the West Indies Women’s side with newbie, Cherry-Ann Fraser joining the likes of Shemaine Campbelle, Sheneta Grimmond and Shabika Gajnabi as locals in the side.
Griffith maintained that the selectors will have to do their job in selecting the best XI to play on the given day but indicated that it would be nice to see the local girls performing in front of their home crowd.
The Assistant Coach went on to note that there has been a more consistent approach by the ladies in their game stating, “They have shown they want to play cricket rather than going through the motions, they look hungry for success and is a good team, they
just need to perform.”
Yesterday the team had two sessions, one during the day and later under the lights. Griffith opined, “Today [Tuesday] is the first day since arriving in Guyana, we had a fairly decent preparation…at the moment we’re two down but we are looking to bounce back, we have three games here, we are looking to focus on that and the first game is going to be very important for us, we need to come back and get that win under our belt and boost their confidence.”
Providence will come alive tomorrow from 18.00 hours with the third T20I between the two sides.
