Cricket West Indies (CWI) Friday gave its approval for the West Indies cricket team to tour England this summer for a three test series and head coach, Phil Simmons says that he believes the fans are rooting for the series to be played.
Speaking on a Trinidad radio station, I955FM recently, Simmons was quizzed on a number of perspectives leading up to the three-Test series billed for a July 8 start.
On his personal view of the tour coming off, Simmons said “The thing about it is there is a lot of talk going on about it and until everything is put in place and settled on and agreed on by both sides, I’m just looking on hopeful it will happen…”
The head coach added, “…the only way it can happen is if it is properly safe for all the participants from both teams, players, coaches, umpires, commentators, everyone has to be safe and I think that is the first thing that they are trying to make sure everyone is safe and if that is the case then we start looking forward to it.”
Simmons articulated not only for himself, but opined, “I think that’s the big thing, a lot of sports for a while ahead is going to go ahead in front closed doors and I think the expectancy here is high because people want some sort of sport to go on, sport is part of life in England and even the premiership there is a lot of talk about when it is going to start back soon or not but people are looking forward to sport coming back because the one thing that they are missing here on the TV [television] everyday there are a lot of old games being showed, past games and people are enjoying that but they looking forward to live sports and I think there is a lot of hope that it happens but again I say that depends on how it is put together and the assurance that everyone will be safe.”
Looking at the team’s preparation amid the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Simmons admitted that it is difficult but not impossible and in light of a number of territories making provisions, the players have been working on their fitness while sticking to the guidelines to deal with the pandemic.
“The thing is for the past about four weeks or a bit more than that, guys have been given different programmes and asked to make sure that even though they are locked away because some of the territories had lockdowns very early and even though they are locked away they must find a room in their house or in a backyard to do the work and keep a certain level of fitness as the places are opened up some players are able to run on the beach or run outside but the training itself has been stepped up,” Simmons noted.
He added, “Even as it has opened up a bit now there are a few guys who can go out and bowl on a pitch somewhere just to get their rhythm back so that is how we have to progress it and we are at a stage where there are not many facilities open where you can actually practice but there are a few grounds where the bowlers themselves can bowl, there is no batsmen so they do spot bowling and we are hopeful that this can develop and develops by the time the tour is ready to come off, everybody would have done something at home but the training has been going on a while now.”
