T20 World Cup: West Indies were tactically quite poor; didn’t nail the power-plays, says Daren Sammy

Melbourne: Two-time Men’s T20 World Cup winning captain Daren Sammy feels that the being quite poor tactically and never nailing the power-play stages with both bat and ball resulted in a shock first round exit of the West Indies from the ongoing tournament.

Before the start of the tournament in Australia, Sammy had written in his column for the ICC that one could expect something special from a young West Indies side led by Nicholas Pooran. But the side were a pale shadow of their illustrious past self, losing to Scotland and Ireland in Hobart to make an early exit from the showpiece event.

“I thought as a team we were quite poor tactically and the problem wasn’t the calibre of players as we had enough talent to play much better. The cricket we play now doesn’t match the talent we have in the team. The team lacked inspiration, they lacked motivation and tactically we were not on song.”

“When you look at a wicket and you have Jason Holder who is six-foot-eight (inches) and you have Alzarri Joseph who is bowling well and you keep opening the bowling with Kyle Mayers. No disrespect to him (Mayers) as conditions in St Lucia in the Caribbean are quite different to Australia where the ball bounces.”

“You have got to win the Powerplays both with the bat and the ball, and we found ourselves losing the Powerplays and having to bring the bowlers back on to try and bring us back into the game, and it was the same with the bat,” Sammy was quoted as saying by the official website of the T20 World Cup.

The fallout from the West Indies’ exit invited varied reactions, with Cricket West Indies (CWI) President Ricky Skerritt promising a full review into the performances in Australia, followed by head coach Phil Simmons announcing that he would leave the position at the end of the year.

Sammy, who won 2012 and 2016 T20 World Cups for the West Indies, pointed out that the team has to get their next head coach right if they were to rise again as a force to reckon with in the cricketing world. “The sad thing is that not many people are putting their hands up to come and coach the West Indies.”

“Even though we were not performing at Tests and ODI, we dominated T20I cricket (during his playing career) and that was something that would bring smiles to the fans and now we have lost it. Whoever comes in (as coach) needs to be tactically sound, have good man management skills and the people around him need to be technically correct.”

Apart from this, Sammy further remarked that West Indies have to change their team culture very quickly apart from picking the right players for different formats of the game. “There needs to be some learnings and some teachings about what we represent as whether you like it or not, West Indies is still every fan’s second favourite team. The world needs West Indies cricket to be strong and we were not there tactically and I have spoken about that.”

“There needs to be a new inspiration as the team outgrew the staff in the dressing room. But we have the guys. You look at Jason Holder, Nicholas Pooran, Rovman Powell, Shai Hope…there is not lack of talent. It is about picking the right personnel for the situation and the different stages that the game needs with proper planning and the right players for the right time.”

–IANS