West Indies assistant coach, Roddy Estwick is calling on his side to turn out peak performances saying that it was not time to talk but for action.
The 59-year-old shared his views ahead of tonight’s first day’s play of the second Test against New Zealand.
According to the former First-Class fast bowler, “We’ve now just got to stop talking. We’ve now just got to put a run together. We win the odd test match, we’ve got to win series, the boys have been around now most of them for 30 odd test matches, Shannon [Gabriel] is playing his 50th so we’re not kids anymore. We can’t hide behind it’s a young side. They’re coming into their peak. Most of them are 27-28 [years] so now the peak years are ahead of them and they’ve got to put in peak performances.”
Estwick expressed similar sentiments as skipper, Jason Holder, who had declared that the time for talking was over and now they need to be ready for the fight.
“You have to have honest and open discussions. This is test cricket. It’s a test of everything, your physical, your mental, everything so we’ve had discussions and like Jason said earlier in an interview, the talking has to stop. We have to go out now and stay in the contest, stay in the fight because you know New Zealand is going to put up a fight and we’ve got to be ready,” he said.
The assistant coach added:”We’ve got to be prepared to fight we can’t just go out there and roll over and say New Zealand is a good side and we are not going to fight and lay down and let them run all over us, we’ve got to stay in the fight, stay in the contest.”
West Indies lost the first Test by an innings and 134 runs and Estwick said there needs to be a sense of discipline from the side.
“We’ve got all the footage, we’ve got our analyst, we’ve done our homework and now it’s just up to the players to go out and execute and execute for long periods not just execute for half an hour or an hour, you’ve got to be able to execute for six hours and come back and execute for another six hours and we’ve got to be prepared to do that, if you are not prepared to do that then you’re going to be leaking runs because it’s all about discipline.”
The task is expected to be even more difficult for West Indies in light of the absence of Kemar Roach who is set to return home following the passing of his father.
While acknowledging his absence Estwick said that it gives the other young bowlers the opportunity.
“So we’ve got to be much more disciplined and we’ve got some other plans that I can’t give to you but we’ve got to come up with ways of getting not only Kane [Williamson] out but we’ve got to come up with ways of getting 20 wickets against New Zealand and win the Test match.”
