Head coach, Phil Simmons believes the side that fields and bowls well in the upcoming West Indies and South Africa Test series will walk away with the spoils.
The two sides will lock horns across two Tests at the Darren Sammy stadium, St. Lucia beginning today.
The West Indies head coach opened up to the media at their first interaction on Monday via Zoom.
According to Simmons, “I think both teams, their stronger suit is their bowling and I think that’s where the competition lies in the series, which team bowls better and which team holds their catches better I think should come out on top.”
Simmons comments followed that of former captain and number one ranked Test all-rounder, Jason Holder who reckoned both sides had an equally potent bowling attack but it was the team that bats better who will lift the trophy.
Holder shared the view that the departure of South Africa’s batting stalwarts have left a gap to fill and could be exploited during the series.
Simmons on the other hand believes the West Indies must work hard to find a weakness in the batting attack and capitalize if they are to win the contest.
“I think any team you come up against you have to look for where you can exploit them and I think they are very strong at the top with the captain [Dean Elgar] and down later down with [Quintin] De Cock and them but you still have to get everyone out and I think we have to bowl well in the middle overs, at their middle order in order to get them out and to get down to the late order because they seem to have batting a long way down,” Simmons said.
In the last decade, the two sides have faced each other three times in the format while the last time West Indies won a Test against South Africa was back in 2007 in the Caribbean. West Indies have only beaten South Africa three times since 1992 in 28 matches with seven drawn encounters.
The head coach described South Africa as “a quality team” and said that the West Indies will have to play better than they did in their recent matches which saw them moving up to sixth in the International Cricket Council Test rankings, one position higher than the Proteas.
He said, “It’s always going to be hard playing against South Africa, as you say they got a quality team and we need to play even better than we did in our last four Test matches. No disrespect to the other teams we played against but we know the rich vein and quality South Africa has and we’ve just got to step it up and move to one percent better than we were in our last game and keep getting there. If you get up to six, getting to sixth is just a start of things, we want to get up at the top and we need to play like we want to be there.”
