Simmons: West Indies have to adapt

West Indies head coach Phil Simmons said the experience between the ODI squad and the Test team are vastly different as they prepare to take on Bangladesh in the Test match from February 3–7 at ZACS, Chattogram.

“The experience in the Test squad is a big difference,” said Simmons. “You may have one or two debutantes in the Test team as opposed to the ODI squad that had 10.”

However, being able to understand the conditions and adapting will be a key factor in the outcome of the match.

Simmons also said that “an understanding as to how they will bat in these upcoming games and put their plans into place” will be vital for the batsmen if they want to get runs.

With three frontline fast bowlers in Kemar Roach, Alzarri Joseph and Shannon Gabriel in what many expect to be spin-friendly conditions, Simmons said that it will also be about knowing and learning how to adjust.

“A wicket is only as easy as you make it out to be,” said Simmons, though he highlighted the final make-up of the team for the Test match has not been decided.

With the batsmen working hard with the expectation of Bangladesh unleashing their spinners in the Test match, Simmons said that they have been “facing as much of our spinners and net bowlers as possible and trying to work out how they will play the Bangladesh spinners”.

One batsman who has been in good form recently is Jermaine Blackwood, who said that occupation of the middle will be one of the key factors to scoring runs.

Blackwood, who has been in the runs since his return to the senior team, believes that spending time in the middle and facing over 200 balls or 300 balls will surely see him scoring runs.

The middle order West Indian batsman said that he got some advice from India’s captain Virat Kohli through social media as well as the last time India toured the Caribbean.

“I asked him about how I have a lot of half-centuries and [only] one century. He just said, ‘What will you do when you score a century? How many deliveries did you face?’ I said I faced 212 balls.

“He said, ‘That’s it, once you can bat some balls, you’re going to score runs.’ So I took a big thing from that. After that conversation, I tell myself that once I can bat over 200 or 300 balls, the way I bat, I can score runs regardless of who I am playing against or where I am playing.”

But before returning to the senior team, Blackwood spent three years trying to get back to the top and during that time he put in the hard work.

“On the sidelines, I did some work on my mental space. I trained twice a day and hit the gym every day. I put in a lot of hard work to be as fit as possible. I tried to come back as strong as possible. You can see the results. I am better at my shot selection, I am starting to understand my game very well.”

Blackwood said he will look to put bowlers under pressure, but will be mentally preparing for the slow nature of the pitches. (CG)