BIRMINGHAM, England, CMC – West Indies head coach Andre Coley urged fans to stay optimistic about the potential of his side after their chastening loss against hosts England in the Richards-Botham Trophy Series.
The Caribbean side were condemned to a 3-0 sweep in the series after they lost the third and final Test against the English by 10 wickets on Sunday at Edgbaston.
They also lost the first Test, which ended three Fridays ago – inside three days – by an innings and 114 runs at Lord’s, and the second Test, which finished last Sunday – inside four days – by 241 runs at Trent Bridge.
“With a young emerging side, there will be a lot said about this being a walkover,” Coley told reporters on Sunday after the match ended. “We should have competed better, but we did show a lot of fight during the series.”
Coley said West Indies will return to the Caribbean with several hard lessons learnt, but it was all part of the process of becoming a competitive side in this format of the sport.
“You’re not going to get great performances every day,” he said. “But one thing you can actually have some control over is going through your processes every single day and giving yourself the best chance of performance.”
Coley said the real-life experience that many of the players got from playing in England will help to change their mindsets and help them to understand the need to improve and remain relevant.
“I can remember having a conversation with [Mikyle] Louis about Mark Wood, about playing first-class cricket back home where potentially maybe 10, 20 people are in the stands [watching] against 20 000 people in the stands [here] and then the uproar when the bowler comes in,” he said.
“It was a steep learning curve for him and the others – but that’s the game. You keep learning. There were instances as you would’ve seen or able to recall in the second Test or even here where we really stood up to that and played pretty well.
“So, it’s really about replicating that and having, for me, within this squad a certain level of bravery to be able to stand up to that and expect that this is the level of cricket that you are at, but at the same time, it’s not beyond you. Just being positive and having as much common sense as possible.”
Coley said West Indies had opportunities to gain the edge throughout the Test series, but his side was not equipped to seize some of the moments.
“If you look at the run of play for this game and even the second Test, both teams missed opportunities, and batters were given second and third opportunities,” he said.
“For us, we had a significant number of our players getting to 50. If two or three of those had been converted to hundreds – and we also had two hundred-run partnerships – potentially, those would have been – if taken deeper, especially in the second innings – posed more of a challenge.
“After taking three wickets on Day 1, we would have thought we were well in it, and the plan was really to try to get England out for less than 300, which would have given us some kind of lead, so that was a missed opportunity.”
West Indies will return this coming week to the Caribbean and will have little time to regroup and find a winning formula for a two-Test series against South Africa on home soil – but Coley was hopeful they can get things right for their next challenge.
We play South Africa in two weeks’ time, and this was good preparation for us heading into that series,” he said. “There will be players who will need some rest – the bowling group would have played all three Tests, and some consideration has to be given to them.
“The batters – we will have a little bit more time with them to go through some of their own individual routines and reinforce some of the good things they have done in this series and some of the deficiencies that have been made quite obvious.”
The first Test against the Proteas starts on August 7 at Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad, and the second Test begins on August 15 at the Guyana National Stadium.
