Former West Indies captain, Sir Clive Lloyd reckons West Indies are playing like an associate country as they look to defend their World T20 title in the ongoing World Cup.
During Tuesday’s Mason and Guest radio programme, Lloyd opined “South Africa made us look like we are not the defending champions. We are playing like an associate country.”
Given the exploits of West Indies so far, their batting has been the topic for discussion as they remain winless after two matches and two warm up games.
According to the Guyanese legend, West Indies have not structured their plans, especially with their batting order, resulting in their routing for 55.
“I think their plans seem to be all over the place and if you look at what has happened… 55 runs?? We are much better than that and the point is too our planning seems to be terrible. We had a wonderful start and we didn’t promote people in the proper order. You expect the captain to come up when you are going at nine [runs] an over to continue. You send [Nicholas] Pooran who has not been playing well and you have [Shimron] Hetmyer who has been batting quite well and making some good scores so the batting order seems to be all over the place,” he said.
Lloyd also recounted the match against South Africa where they had a solid foundation and projected to have a big score but fell “30 runs short.”
“Some way along the line we feel this game is about hitting sixes. We’re getting caught on the boundary. This is a big ground. If I’m on 58 I’m looking to get to 80 or 90 runs… that would take the game away from the opposition, we were 30 runs short today…Somebody’s got to take hold of the situation,” he said.
The 77-year-old said that he found it strange that despite the talent in the bowling unit and the depth of batting the team has found itself in this position.
“We’ve got all the bowling you can think of, batting all the way to eight or nine but we still get bowled out for 55 on a pitch that is probably the best pitch in the UAE and some of our guys would have played on those pitches,” he said.
Lloyd suggested that to curb these deficiencies, the squad should be encamped for at least three weeks prior to the tournament and have players valuing national duties over money from the franchise leagues around the world.
He referenced that in football national duties outweigh the club structure regardless of the stage of the competition in the franchise league.
“If you have a World Cup to play players should congregate three weeks before and have a camp. You cannot have your senior players all over the place. These players are earning good money, fine, but it comes a time when enough is enough, you must come and play cricket for your country,” he said.
