[www.inewsguyana.com] – West Indies Head Coach Ottis Gibson says that his team is ready for their title defense in the upcoming world T20 title.
Speaking after the series with England concluded on Thursday (March 12), the Barbadian said that the series provided the perfect litmus to test the team’s readiness.
“These three games were an indicator as to where we are as a group,” Gibson said. “It’s been a great series for us. We know it’s going to be a tough job to retain the trophy but the team is in a good place at the moment. We know what it takes to win the tournament. We just need to look after the basics of the game that need to be applied but we’re more than capable of retaining. The batting’s in a good place and that’s very important.”
According to the former player, the loss against England in the final game meant very little, as they were able to assess some of their weaker points.
“We wanted to win all three games and it’s been a long time since we’ve won three on the trot in any format,” he said. “We came with the intention to sweep the series but England came really hard at us in the first ten [overs] getting over a hundred. Then we pulled it back in the second ten by limiting them to sixty or so. Even though we lost, we had players like [Chris] Gayle resting and we decided to give [Sheldon] Cottrell a chance to get themselves into the T20 atmosphere.”
Gibson boasted of his team’s batting strength and hinted at the possibility of a replacement for the injured Kieron Pollard.
“(Andre) Russell had a great CPL and as you know, we’re missing Pollard so we’re trying to give Andre the opportunity to fill the Pollard role but we have to give him time to grow into the role. We believe strongly in Russell and that he has the capability, the game and the power to do that job,” he said.
The duo of Samuel Badree and Sunil Narine, Gibson dubbed as “outstanding” but also warned opponents not to underestimate his seamers such as Ravi Rampaul and Dwayne Bravo as he indicated his bowling strength.
He also touted Krishmar Santokie as a big addition to their pace attack.
[Extracted and modified from CRICINFO]
