As West Indies gear up to play Australia in the first CG Insurance One Day International (ODI) today, consistency throughout the series is at the top of captain, Kieron Pollard’s agenda.
The day/night affair bowls off at 14.30 hours in Barbados.
Pollard, during yesterday’s pre-match press conference, highlighted that trying to achieve consistency has been years in the making, with the team looking to shift to another level.
The 34-year-old said, “We started off this quest a couple years ago when we were trying to find the right balance and combination. I think we have sort of found that and now is the next step which is to consistently hit those targets, as I said, work in progress but I think we have the personnel in the dressing room to do that.”
Looking at the batting, Pollard supported Head Coach, Phil Simmons’ statements on Sunday, where he reckoned that consistent scores beyond 300 were necessary to win the series.
The all-rounder detailed that those 300-plus scores are international standards now but alternately, the team could be looking to limit Australia below the par score if the opportunity to bowl first presents itself and back the batting to chase it down.
There are positives in the batting coming in from a successful T20I series especially with the inclusion of Shai Hope and Darren Bravo who both made centuries in the last ODI series.
“You have Hopey [Hope] coming back. He was not in the T20 team. He has an appetite for batting long and scoring runs. Darren Bravo as well hasn’t had the opportunity only played one T20 match but his last ODI score would have been 100 as well so a couple of the guys coming in we expect to sort of bat long and love batting long and have an appetite to score runs…with that aspect of it, it is just a matter of the T20 guys continuing that momentum and not curb their natural instinct but understand its a longer format of the game but one thing remains the ball is still white…,” the captain explained.
The team, according to Simmons, will also be boosted by the inclusion of Pollard, who is nursing an injury and Jason Holder who was rested.
Pollard was not clear on his injury, stating, “Well I am alive and well. I’ve gotten the opportunity to rest and it’s a longer format. From a personal point of view, I think I am looking forward to the series. I’ve been doing the necessary training and protocols in terms of return to play. We still have one more day in terms of preparation…”
From a bowling perspective, Pollard teased about the inclusion of leg spinner, Hayden Walsh Jr., but reiterated that a squad has already been named that features left-arm spinners, Akeal Hosein and off-spinner, Jason Mohammed as well as all-rounders, Fabien Allen and Roston Chase.
The pace department has the services of Romario Shepherd, Anderson Phillip, Alzarri Joseph and Sheldon Cottrell.
Meanwhile, another consideration is the pitch.
Pollard stated, “We went to the oval last night [Sunday night], got our first look at it, looks good actually, have to give them credit, haven’t seen the outfield so lush green for a while and the evenness of the grass spread across the pitches, it looks good…just a matter of how it plays.”
Assessing the opposition, Pollard admitted that Mitchell Marsh was good and while wishing Aaron Finch a speedy recovery, noted it would be better for West Indies if he was not able to play the series.
Pollard underscored the importance of maintaining consistency throughout the series due to the fact that it is a build up to the 2023 World Cup.
“Every One-Day game we play is important and it is geared towards 2023 which is in the future which sometimes in all honesty I don’t like to speak about but once presented with itself in terms of 50-over cricket we have to play each game as if is sort of a quarter final knockout game because it is for points and will have value in the back end so with that being said we have to focus on that and focus on winning and finding the right methodology to go ahead and win so that is our main focus and hopefully guys can buy into it and we can hit the ground running this series,” he related.
