GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran has expressed relief after scoring his first One-Day International half century in 12 months, but regretted the innings did not result in a change of fortunes for his embattled side.
The left-hander stroked a top score of 73 – his first half-century in 16 ODI innings – but West Indies went down by four wickets to Bangladesh here last weekend to suffer a 3-0 clean sweep.
West Indies have now lost five of their last six ODIs in the Caribbean this year and won just four of 15 outings overall for 2022.
“I wasn’t getting the scores but I’ve been batting really good. And it doesn’t really matter,” Pooran said.
“Yes, I may feel good I’ve scored some runs but I’ve just lost a series 3-0 so it really doesn’t matter to me.
“I feel like I’ve been contributing a lot with the bat in different formats as well. [I’m] a bit relieved I got a half-century after some games and I’m looking forward to more but again, it is more important for us to win.”
He continued: “If that half-century had helped us win the game, then definitely but I know I have a lot of work to do on my batting as well and as a team, we have a lot of work to do.
“I felt like I played well but I left runs out there and at the end of the day it was really vital for the team. I felt like I left 20, 30 runs out there.”
Not for the first time during the series, the nature of the Guyana National Stadium came under the microscope as West Indies struggled to 178 all out, once again mesmerised by Bangladesh’s spinners on a helpful strip.
This followed scores of 149 in the opening game and 108 in the second – the latter the second lowest-ever against Bangladesh.
And Pooran urged authorities to improve the standard of the pitches in order to promote better batsmanship, especially for international games.
“I don’t know if the captains have any say in preparation of pitches but I guess it is not that difficult to see we want good cricket pitches,” he said.
“We played three games and Tamim Iqbal got Man-of-the-Series for scoring [117] runs.
“This is international cricket at the end of the day. We know for a fact that every time we do get good batting pitches in the Caribbean, we as a batting group have been doing well.”
Pooran also pointed out that the early starts were resulting in fresher pitches and with West Indies losing every toss in the series, the Trinidadian said the challenge had been greater for the hosts’ batsman.
These factors, Pooran noted, had combined to hurt the development of a young side.
“And not only [do we want] good batting wickets but the 9:30 start is always challenging with a lot of moisture on the wicket and that has been the biggest challenge for us,” he stressed.
“The toss hasn’t been in our favour for the last six ODI games in the Caribbean and we’ve lost [five of our last six] and I believe the toss played a big role.”
He added: “I feel like these pitches aren’t helping us. The most it’s doing is frustrating us as a group because it doesn’t matter who you bring into the team, they’re going to struggle on wickets like these.
“But we definitely need to continue to work on getting wickets with the new ball, getting wickets in the middle as well and as a batting group, try our best to bat 50 overs. That’s the game plan for us.”
West Indies face India in a three-match ODI series starting Friday at Queen’s Park Oval, Port-of-Spain.
