Sammy: Bowlers key to West Indies lifting World Cup title

If the West Indies are to stand any chance of winning an unprecedented third World Cup title, their bowlers will have to produce a herculean effort, says head coach Daren Sammy.

Sammy made the comments following the just concluded T20I series against South Africa, which the West Indies lost 2-1.

The Windies’ bowlers struggled during the series, taking just 10 wickets across the three matches. In the first two matches, they conceded a whooping 401 runs while claiming only four wickets.

Their best performance came in Saturday’s third match – which was reduced to 10 overs – where they restricted the hosts to 118 for six to win by six runs via the Duckworth/Lewis/Stern method.

With just six days remaining before the West Indies take on Scotland in their T20 World Cup opener, Sammy said how far the team goes in the tournament will be determined by how well the bowling unit performs.

“…Hopefully we can play a brand of cricket that helps us win. Like I said before I have a really good feeling.

“I know it’s going to take a massive effort with the ball but I’m seeing signs that when we execute, and today we executed our plans to different batters more often than not, and that’s something Ravi [Rampaul] has been drilling with the bowling, so I’m looking forward to the World Cup,” Sammy said.

“We have all the plans, but we all know we could have all the plans, especially from a bowling standpoint, but a plan is really good when it’s executed, and we as a bowling group have not really executed well.”

However, Sammy said while he was encouraged by the bowlers’ performance in Saturday’s final T20 match, it was needed on a more consistent basis.

The head coach also said the team needed to improve their fielding as a matter of urgency.

“Today I saw more of execution, what we discussed in team meetings, how we want to bowl to different batters. We have to do that really well.

“We have to take the catches, for sure we have to take the catches. We can’t keep giving the opposition’s best batsmen one and two and three chances. We will be punished by that,” Sammy maintained.

Sammy, who was part of the Windies’ World Cup winning teams in 2012 and 2016, admitted he was pleased with the batting unit heading to the World Cup.

Despite losing the series, the batsmen had totals of 173 for seven, 221 for four and also blasted 114 for three in 10 overs.

“I’m happy with how the batting is going, certain areas probably against spin I’d like to see them rotate some more. In the series against South Africa, I think they were probably averaging around 11, 12 runs an over against our spinners while we were averaging around seven against theirs, and that is something teams would try to use against us,” Sammy said.

“When we were really good in the World Cup in the Caribbean, we had that [Nicholas] Pooran factor in the middle and now Hetty [Shimron Hetmyer] is doing that at number three, and that gives us a way to counteract what the opposition’s spinners bring at us, especially wrist spin and left-arm spin.” (CMC)

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