DERBY, England, CMC – West Indies head coach, Andre Coley, has given the assurance that all-rounder Deandra Dottin’s return to bowling will be carefully managed in an attempt to ensure she is at peak fitness, before resuming her usual work rate.
Dottin has not yet bowled in the ongoing five-match Twenty20 International series against England but Coley said that was because the 28-year-old had been placed in a “back-to-bowling” programme on tour, in view of her recent long term injury.
“She’s [just] recovered from injury. It’s no secret our players haven’t been able to do much for a very long time and Deandra is on a back-to-bowling programme [and] she started that while she was here so she’s still on that,” Coley explained.
“We need to make sure she’s 100 per cent to be able to bowl competitively and she has been doing bowling work behind the scenes during training.
“I’m comfortable with where she’s at but we want to make sure that long term she’s OK and she can bowl at the intensity that she was consistently [before] and not just for a game or two games.
“But we’re happy that healing is there. It is really only to get her back into bowling, making sure her lines are good and she’s actually a hundred per cent to bowl.”
Dottin spent 12 months out of action after undergoing surgery for a shoulder injury and only returned to international cricket last February for the T20 World Cup in Australia.
Then, she also played as a specialist batsman but her sharp medium pace has been a glaring absence from the West Indies attack.
Following her innings in the second T20 International against England on Wednesday, questions were raised about Dottin’s fitness after she was seen with strapping on her shoulder but Coley was quick to allay those fears.
“She’s fine as far as I’m aware. A lot of what we’ve done with Deandra’s shoulder is just about rehab,” the Jamaican pointed out.
“She’s returning from an injury which had her off from competitive cricket or a while so anything you would’ve seen [regarding her shoulder] would have been just rehab and making sure we’re managing [her properly].
“But there’s no injury around the shoulder at the moment. She’s fine.”
Dottin has been in excellent form with the bat, top-scoring with 69 in last Monday’s opener before also leading the Caribbean side with 38 in the second match.
She has failed to find support from the remainder of the batting, however, with no other batsman outside of captain Stafanie Taylor in the second game, managing to reach double figures.
Coley acknowledged the problem but said work was being done to correct it.
“Since we’ve been here we’ve done work around it. A lot of it we have to be realistic about our resources,” he noted.
“Our main batters are basically at the top and we have young players and they have to grow and improve, and it’s actually about how they can support the top order batters.
“It’s going to be key in our side if a couple of players from the top five bat very deep and in the event that we need the lower order batting, they would have to support.
“Because of the lack of depth in the lower order unfortunately the reality is the bulk of the scoring has been left with three or four players.”
