West Indies head coach, Phil Simmons is calling on his batsmen to improve on their shot selection and situation assessment heading into their second match of the T20 World Cup.
Simmons made this assessment yesterday during a press conference on the heels of West Indies’ six-wicket thrashing at the hands of England in their opening match.
In that match, the head coach believed the pitch to be around a par score of 140-150 but West Indies were skittled for 55 in 14.2 overs, Chris Gayle being the lone batsman to reach double figures with 13.
According to Simmons, “For me, yesterday (Saturday) was just about bad shot selection. The bowling, as you would say, wasn’t as you would say extraordinary. All the guys played against these guys before so I just put it down to bad shot selection.
“I think the game plan is there and everyone understands the plan. I think after losing a couple of early wickets we needed to regroup and we just kept losing wickets…”
Simmons feels there is urgent need for some improvement.
“We need to improve that tenfold by the time we get to Tuesday.”
Nevertheless, Simmons took satisfaction in the way the players performed in the field especially the bowlers, particularly, Akeal Hosein who picked up 2-24 from his four overs.
“I think you had to be extremely impressed with the way we went out in the field having to defend 56 runs,” he said.
“As you said Akeal put up his hands up and he was always going to open the bowling and he put up his hand, extraordinary catch and all the bowlers were up for it, they needed to bowl well even though it was 56 runs so that was heartening to see,” he added.
Despite their inability to adjust which resulted in them losing both warm up matches and against England, Simmons indicated that their aggressive style would not be diminished but rather their ability to assess the situation will be improved.
“The style in which we play cricket has always been the style in which we play cricket but we also got to assess the situation at the time and play according to the situation, so there is enough experience in the team so that any two batsmen there at the same time would have enough experience to assess and play accordingly. We would continue to be in our aggressive state but our shot selection, our assessment of the situation must be a lot better,” he said.
West Indies will face South Africa tomorrow and Simmons pointed out that the side is eager to make the bounce back from the horrific start to their title defense.
He said, “Everyone is looking forward to the next game, because when you have a game like that, especially the opening game of the World Cup then everyone is looking forward to the next game wishing it was tomorrow.”
