ROSEAU, Dominica, CMC – West Indies Women chief selector Ann Browne-John says the Caribbean side will use the downtime during the break caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak to critically examine their recent performances, especially in the wake of a disappointing T20 World Cup campaign earlier this year.
Playing in the 10-nation tournament Down Under, the Windies won just one of their four group matches to finish third in the preliminaries and miss out on the semi-finals for the first time in six appearances.
“As you would be aware, the team did not do as good as we would have liked or we would have expected,” Browne-John said.
“But with the coronavirus we have not been able to get together as we would have liked to and do our post-mortems but we have been doing as much we can electronically.
“So we have been having discussions and have been looking to see where we fell short, what we did good and how can we use this as a learning curve as we move forward.”
West Indies Women won their maiden world title when they captured the T20 World Cup in 2016, beating multiple-time champions Australia in the final in Kolkata.
They failed in their title defence two years ago when the Caribbean played host to the tournament, bounced out at the semi-final stage.
The Stafanie Taylor-led unit were also unconvincing in this year’s showpiece, beating minnows Thailand in their opener but then falling to Pakistan and England, before suffering a washout against South Africa in their final game.
Browne-John said while the current COVID-19 lockdown was frustrating for the players as it kept them out of action, the time away from the game could prove useful. “We are not sure how soon we would be able to move forward because every day we realise the dates for lockdown or stay-inside order or going further and further back,” she pointed out.
“I know it’s affecting a lot of sports people, I know it’s frustrating a lot of the girls and a lot of the cricketers but it is something that we have to do if we want to keep safe.
“We’re going to do our work, we will look at what has happened in the World Cup, we will look at the areas we need to build on.”
The coronavirus outbreak has disrupted sports globally and the effects have been also felt in the Caribbean, with Cricket West Indies forced to abort several development tournaments including the Women’s Super50 Cup scheduled for last month in Guyana.
Browne-John said the inability to stage the tournament had deprived authorities of the chance to assess emerging players.
“We had hoped really that with the regional tournament coming up that we would’ve had a chance to look at so many other players and look at a wide expanse of persons and to see where we can move forward,” Browne-John lamented.
“This has not been able to materialise right now but we hope that we will be able to do it as we move forward.”
