Ahmedabad, Feb 12: West Indies head coach Phil Simmons has expressed disappointment in his team’s batting against India in ODI series, saying it “needs urgent attention”. In all three games, it was the batting that let down West Indies. The top five batters have not been able to fire which cost the visitors a 0-3 defeat against India.
“Batting needs urgent attention because it’s just lost us the last two games. It’s a huge concern, people got to stand up now as we go into our next set of ODIs in June and make sure that they’re batting for West Indies,” said Simmons at the virtual press conference on Friday.
“Mode of dismissal is the biggest issue. It’s hurtful, it doesn’t make for a good watch. It’s something that players have to sit and get right as soon as possible. We can’t keep going like this.” West Indies head coach, however, stressed that it’s about assessing the situation well instead of terming it a technical issue. Simmons cited India’s Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant’s 110-run partnership and said they “assessed the situation” well.
“I don’t think technical skills is an issue. I think it’s about the assessment. On some ocassions we assses them, but on some it’s not the best. “We’ve got to assess the situation and play accordingly. We saw how Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant batted for a while, assessed the situation and realised they had to do that. Our batters have to assess the situation and know that we’ve to bat for a while. They can’t be 100/6 in 20 something overs. It’s a 50 overs game,” he added.
With the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 to be played in India, Simmons noted that his players, be it the ones in the series or the newcomers, have to work on playing in Indian conditions. “The next tournament is here in India. We’ve to go back and assess what we’ve to improve on mainly playing in these conditions as batters and continue to work on them. Whether it’s same batters or new batters coming in. We’ve to work on playing in these conditions. That’s the priority.” When asked what were the positive takeaways for him in the three-match ODI series, the head coach said that the bowling and fielding department stood out. “The positive is that fact that the bowlers have done what we asked from them. The way we’ve gone about our task on the field when bowling and fielding, that’s been huge positive. Bowlers were more disciplined than the batters, sticking to plans that we’d for Indian batters.” West Indies and India will next travel to Kolkata to play the T20I leg of the tour, starting February 16 at the Eden Gardens.Â
