West Indies assistant coach, Roddy Estwick has stressed the importance of good batting displays in the T20I series later this month. The former fast-bowler believes that skipper, Kieron Pollard along with young guns, Nicholas Pooran and Shimron Hetmyer will be important to that charge.
Estwick shared his views during a recent interview with the media ahead of their three-match series which is scheduled for November 27, 29 and 30.
“Obviously from a batting point of view those three are very important,” the 59-year-old noted but stressed that everyone has to understand their roles.
“The batters need to give us a score where we can pose a challenge to New Zealand, where we can be very competitive. Nobody comes to New Zealand and win very easily, it’s a very difficult place to come to, it’s going to be a hard tour but we’ve got to be able to fight, to stay in the contest as long as possible and once an opening comes we’ve got to take it with both hands,” he stated.
“I think T20 cricket is all about team effort and everybody has their role to play and what we are trying to do is to get the players to understand their roles and once they understand their roles they got to go out there and execute…the bowlers as well play a very important role, they know they got to get the death overs right, they know they got to get the middle overs right and they got to field well so it’s all about a team effort,,” he said.
Estwick used the just-concluded Indian Premier League (IPL) to make his point about understanding roles, particularly, champions Mumbai Indians.
“If you look at the teams doing well now…the teams that got to the final, there weren’t one standout, there were people playing different roles at different times. You look at Mumbai Indians, they are all playing different roles at different times and you’ve got to get that in T20 cricket. You’ve got to get everyone doing their roles as closely to perfect as possible because if you not executing your role then your team is going to struggle,” he stated.
Pollard, who led Mumbai Indians in the middle part of the tournament copped the super striker award for the highest strike rate of the tournament. His strike rate of 191.42 also came with an average of 53.6 as he scored 268 runs in 12 innings. With the ball, the West Indies captain took four wickets.
Pooran also had a healthy strike rate of 169.7 as he chalked up 353 runs in 14 innings for Kings XI Punjab.
Hetmyer played a different role for Delhi Capitals than he was accustomed to when playing for West Indies and Guyana Amazon Warriors. Nevertheless, he managed 185 runs in 11 innings with a strike rate of 148.
