West Indies limited overs captain, Kieron Pollard and all-rounder, Jason Holder are expected to return for the upcoming One Day International series against Australia.
This was revealed by head coach, Phil Simmons during a media briefing on Sunday where he stated, “the captain should be fit, we would know that in the practice over the next couple days and Jason Holder was rested for a period of time so he will also be back.”
The inclusions are welcomed by the squad, given the fact that West Indies have not defeated the Australians in a 50-over series in the Caribbean since 1995.
Nevertheless, Simmons reckons that the aim is to get full points from the series as he looks towards the 2023 World Cup.
“I think the important thing in this format is a point’s basis and these three games have points branded to them so I think from that point of view that’s the only motivation you need in this case, its point-based and leading up to World Cup 2023…I think that’s what you are looking for, every series you go into you are looking for full points, and you’re looking to win all three games,” he said.
Simmons reasoned that the Australians will not be an easy walk over and coming back from a 1-4 loss to the Caribbean side in the T20I series, they would be coming even harder.
Alternately, the series win, according to Simmons, does provide some amount of momentum coming into the 50-over format since a lot of the squad that will feature were part of that successful team.
Additionally, momentum also comes from the series win over Sri Lanka just prior to Australia’s tour.
The head coach contended that it was a reiteration of the pride and privilege that comes with playing for the West Indies that motivated the turnaround for the side in recent times and were hopeful that improvements in the batting could see them posting 300-plus scores throughout the series.
“I think we are looking forward to the way we batted to continue and improvements have to be made in sort of the middle overs from overs 20 to 39 for us to get from that 280-290 to the 320-330 we are going to need against the Australia team to be winning games so that is what we are looking for in the batsmen, getting 290 to 320 and 330s,” he said.
Speaking on the top order getting runs, he noted, “It’s been great, in the last series the top three all got hundreds and what we asking of them now one of the top three carry on until the end so that we get to that 320-330 and once we continue with that now we are going to put that into place and we are going to get that 300-plus.”
Simmons is taking some amount of confidence in the batting order producing these over six-runs-an-over scores with the top three batsmen all scoring centuries during the Sri Lanka series and building large partnerships throughout the innings.
“The willingness and hunger to win cricket matches for the West Indies,” Simmons said was the reason for the turnaround, adding “at the start of the Sri Lanka series we had a chat among all the players and of course the main thing we had to understand is that we have to play cricket together for West Indies cricket, couple guys weren’t there I think Dre Russ [Andre Russell] wasn’t there and we had honest conversations with ourselves before the South Africa series and that’s what we are looking at…”
The first contest in the three-match series will bowl off on Tuesday in Barbados followed by games on Thursday and Saturday. All matches will be day/night fixtures. Bowl off is set for 14.30 hours.
