KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – Rookie West Indies white-ball batsman, Brandon King, has set his sights on this year’s Twenty20 World Cup, and is hoping to further impress selectors to ensure he is selected for the showpiece Down Under.
The 25-year-old made his international debut last year and has maintained his spot in the side despite failing to register a single half-century in 12 innings across both limited overs formats.
But with the T20 World Cup scheduled for October 18 to November 15, King is hoping to make the trip in order to put his talents on show on the global stage.
“It [the World Cup] is the biggest opportunity [to showcase talent] because that’s when you have most people watching. I had that goal from last year, trying to make sure I’m selected in that team, and then I’ll take it from there,” the Jamaican told the Observer newspaper here.
“In terms of what I’ve done, I think there is a lot of room for improvement. It’s a learning process but you try to learn as quickly as possible.
“At the end of the day you get picked to perform, so you don’t get endless opportunities to prove yourself. It’s about learning from your mistakes as fast as you can.”
King earned a call-up to West Indies colours after dominating in both the four-day and T20 formats last year. He was the leading scorer in the Caribbean Premier League with 496 runs for losing finalists Guyana Amazon Warriors and also plundered 630 runs for his native Jamaica Scorpions in the domestic first class championship.
However, he has struggled at international level, with a highest score of 39 in One-Day Internationals and 43 in T20s, and is targeting another successful CPL in order to remain in the selectors frame.
“It’s the nature of sport; current form is very important and I think the selectors will always look to who’s performing [well] closer to the time of a competition,” he pointed out.
“From a personal point of view, obviously you want to be in the best form heading into it as well. You want to have full confidence.”
The CPL is carded for August 19 to September 26 but its staging is in doubt due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic which has halted cricket globally.
West Indies are also due to host South Africa and New Zealand between July and August in Tests and limited overs games but both series are also now in jeopardy, and are likely to deprive King of chances to prove his worth.
Though away from the field because of the lockdowns across the Caribbean due to the outbreak, King said he was using the time to work on his fitness and improve technical aspects of his batting.
“There are challenges because there are things that you cannot do as you used to but I look at it in a positive way – there are also things you might not have had time to do in a normal situation,” he explained.
“[Now] you can focus more on bettering yourself, and fitness-wise you can push yourself in workouts a little bit more than you could during competitions.
“You have time to recover, you have time to work on some technical stuff – go back to basics in a sense – and get that really sorted out so that when cricket starts back, you can have a better foundation than when you stopped.”
