The West Indies and England will return to international cricket with a three-Test match series, in England, next month. With the prevalence of the coronavirus still a major concern and ongoing racial equality protests around the globe, the situation to begin the tour is anything but typical.
In a bid to mitigate the risks of exposure to COVID-19, the teams will spend the entire period of the tour in what has been termed a bio-secure environment, which will keep everyone associated with the series quarantined from the general public. With all the distractions, Bradshaw believes the task of focusing on just cricket is likely to be tougher for the team.
“We could lose the series mentality if we are distracted before the start of that series. So, it’s going to be incumbent on the management team to keep the guys focused,” Bradshaw told the Mason and Guest Radio program.
“These are trying circumstances that they are playing under, but they are professionals and they must act as professionals and really utilize the preparation time to the best of their advantage.”
The former West Indies bowler has suggested that if the West Indies was the win a third ICC T20 World Cup later this year, the coach and selectors need to have frank and honest discussions with the batsmen about their performances, especially about how and when they lose their wickets.
Going forward in a world cup year, he said, “this would be the time to have some honest words within the camp and I am sure that Coach Simmons and maybe Chief Selector Roger Harper will have to be brutally honest with the guys.
“Experienced or inexperienced, our match awareness will have to be a lot better.”
In the matches played at the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua, the West Indies won the opening match by four wickets chasing 132 for victory. Chasing 160 in the second match, the home side lost badly by 43 runs. They eventually clinched the series by virtue of a three-wicket win, needing only 132.
Many of the West Indies batsmen did not live up to expectation. Lendl Simmons managed only 73 runs from the three matches; Evin Lewis, 55, Jason Holder, 52, Kieron Pollard 51, Nicholas Pooran, 31, Chris Gayle, 29, and Dwayne Bravo, 6.
Speaking on Mason & Guest with host Andrew Mason on Tuesday night, Bradshaw said when it comes to T20 matches, it comes down to more than just the number of runs scored. “It’s the manner of the dismissals,” said the 46-year-old Bradshaw, who represented the West Indies in five Tests and 62 ODI's between 2004 and 2007.
“Yes, we showed weakness and uncertainty to the spinners, but it is how collectively as a unit, we bat the spin,” he said, adding that several batsmen were also tentative against aggressive pace bowling.
Bradshaw insisted that the West Indies batsmen will have to show significant improvement as there was “nowhere to hide. There is too much video, too much analysis.”
The performances of the batsmen were so poor, Brathwaite said, the result could have easily been 3-0 in favour of Sri Lanka and with the world cup mere months away, there is a lot of work to be done.
“As we build towards the world cup, our performances will have to be a lot more clinical,” he said.
“Like so many series, we go into it and we believe our bowling is the weak link and when it comes out, it is the batting that struggles, and this has been the case in all three formats.
“In Test cricket, whenever we score over 500 runs over two innings we’ve won and whenever we score over 300 runs in an ODI we are very competitive but quite often it the batting that has let us down, and the batting in the T20 series showed a bit of irresponsibility.
“The shots that were played put us (under) undue pressure when we didn’t need to be.”
On the back of an impressive effort in marshaling the squad to defeat Bangladesh, in a two-Test series last week, calls have arisen for Kraigg Brathwaite to lead the team, ahead of regular captain Holder, for the upcoming series against Sri Lanka.
Holder missed out on the team’s tour of Bangladesh after being one of 12 players to pull out of the campaign due to health and safety concerns. In addition, however, the captain, who had led the team to previous tours of England and New Zealand, also admitted to experiencing a high level of fatigue, particularly having gone through several weeks of quarantine.
For Bradshaw, provided he is in a good mental state, Holder should resume his duties leading the squad.
“I would support the retention of Jason if it is that we understand his state of mind at this time,” Bradshaw told the Mason and Guest radio program.
“Jason has been earmarked as our long-term captain. Let’s recall that he’s had some success and we were very excited when we won the Wisden Trophy. He has had some success and he has been molding the team,” he added.
“He has led by example and I would want to sit down with him and understand the challenges he was going through. Because if he is still challenged it may need a situation where he is given that space to ensure that his individual performance does not suffer.”
Holder was appointed captain of the team in 2015.
Holder, the top-ranked Test all-rounder in the world, typically bats at 8th. So far, the majority of his contributions have been with the ball, but he has shown he can do plenty of damage for the team with the bat as well.
In fact, his highest score of 202 unbeaten came just last year against England but the player is yet to demonstrate a level of high consistency with the willow. Bradshaw insists the player’s improvement should be a process.
“I’ve said before he needs to move up the order, eighth and so forth was too low and that was based on the facts, when you look at how well he was batting and his average compared to the rest of the batting unit. He was one of better batsmen so he is a wasted talent batting at eight,” Bradshaw told the Mason and Guest Radio program.
“Ideally I’d like to see him get to six. I believe he has the talent, but if it’s a gradual process then I don’t have a problem with it. It depends on the balance and structure of the team,” he added.
“What we must do is to get our top five in the order correct. So that a guy like Jason, Dowrich, and so forth, they can come and build on strong starts. We are not going to win games when we are 60 for 4 in Test matches consistently. So, those are the critical things we must put together.”
The West Indies will return to international cricket, following an enforced absence due to the coronavirus epidemic, with a three-Test tour of England next month. The unpredictability of the team’s batting line-up, much as it has in recent years, will again be a source of concern, particularly with explosive middle-order batsmen Darren Bravo and Shimron Hetmeyer unavailable for selection.
The duo, along with all-rounder Keemo Paul, opted to miss the tour over health concerns. The West Indies will need no further illustration than the opening Test of their last England tour for an example of a dismal batting performance. On that occasion, the team was dismissed for 168 and 137 in pursuit of England’s 514 declared.
“We've been concerned with our batting for a while, let’s just stop and be realistic. We don’t have the quality of batting that we want," Bradshaw told the Mason and Guest Radio program.
“We don’t have the quality batsmen but what we hope for, is that collectively we can rally and that we can get 300 and 350 and 400 by batting deep and by batting sensibly," he added.
"There are other teams in the world that have a similar challenge and they manage to fight through. For a number of years, we saw that with teams like New Zealand, where each player coming to the crease understood your job was to build a partnership that allowed the team to put a competitive total on the board. Getting runs in England is important, especially in the first innings, so there is no doubt that we will have to bat deep.”
The 40-year-old Barbadian only took nine wickets in the five Tests he played for the West Indies between March and June 2006.
He made his debut against New Zealand in Auckland in March 2006 and played his final Test against India at Gros Islet in June that year but during his short time with the team, his passion and commitment to the team was never in question.
He is best remembered for scoring an unbeaten 34 in fading light at the Oval as he and wicketkeeper Courtney Browne mounted an unbeaten ninth-wicket partnership of 71 that lifted the West Indies from certain defeat to an unlikely victory in the 2004 Champions Cup.
Speaking on the Mason and Guest radio show in Barbados on Tuesday, Bradshaw expressed his frustration at the West Indies performance in New Zealand where they lost both Test matches by an innings and were swept by the hosts.
“Like every cricket fan I am really disappointed with the performance. We have not stood up and gave a good account of ourselves and I think that that is the most critical thing and it’s worrying the manner in which we lost the series,” he said.
“We would have seen in recent times there have been some positive steps taken in terms of our attitude and in terms of doing some of the small things better.
“I mean, you take a team like New Zealand, if we had to look at their team, maybe (they’re) not a bunch of world beaters, not the Kohli’s and the Steve Smiths that you would see dominate the headlines on other teams, but what this team has done and what we can learn so much from is that they’re doing the little things well, often and that is what we have to improve on, doing the little things well often.”
It bears noting that the West Indies only bowled New Zealand out once during the two Tests and took 17 wickets overall. Meanwhile, New Zealand’s bowlers took 38 wickets. Tim Southee was the best of the hosts’ bowlers with 12 wickets twice as many as the West Indies’ leading bowler Shannon Gabriel.
“It is not good enough that after 50 Tests or so our bowlers are not consistent enough on the first morning of a Test to be consistently putting the ball in front of the batsman,” he said.
He was equally critical of the batsmen, who failed to make any impact on the tour save for a few notable exceptions. In the second Test they also dropped seven catches, three of them off Henry Nicholls whose 174 took the match away from the visitors.
“It is not good enough that you go to New Zealand and the excuse for the batsman is that the ball is swinging. It is difficult conditions but we have been going to New Zealand for over 50 years and the conditions have not changed.
“And I appreciate the fact that New Zealand played well but I am more concerned that our performances as a professional unit was not consistent enough to merit the representation of West Indies cricket which we must hold dear.”
