The 35-year-old Bonner has earned plenty of accolades for gritty performances for the West Indies since making his debut against Bangladesh in 2021. The player has, however, struggled vor vorm ov late, managing just 65 in his last 5 innings and has been hit twice off short pithed bowling in the last year.
Bonner has been ruled out of the current Test series against Australia after being struck on the back of the helmet by a Cameron Green bouncer. Despite being allowed to continue batting for another few hours Bonner is now under the team’s concussion protocol.
In light of the latest incident, questions have been raised regarding the player susceptibility to pace bowling.
“Short bowling is simple yet complex, you are either looking to attack the ball or defend it. I think. In simple parlance either you are hooking or you ducking. I think either Bonner is caught between two minds,” Smith told the Mason and Guest radio program.
“…He takes his eyes off the ball. We’ve seen him now being struck. If we’re being honest, we can pinpoint some of the technical deficiencies our batters have,” he added.
“We can’t knock Bonner because he’s done reasonably well up until this point, but you know he’s languid, he always looks little bit slow on the ball and these hard bouncy surfaces will show that up.”
Bonner has recorded two 100s and three 50s for the West Indies in 15 matches so far.
Trailing by a mammoth 171 runs on first innings, the West Indies rallied to a remarkable three-wicket victory thanks to a double century from debutant Kyle Mayers and sterling contributions with the bat from fellow debutant Nkrumah Bonner and Joshua Da Silva. Spinners Jomel Warrican and Rahkeem Cornwall also played their part with the ball.
Understandably, the players are still euphoric over the improbable victory but Brathwaite said it was now important to remember that everything starts anew for the second Test.
"The biggest thing is not to get carried away. We are happy with the win, but we know we start from zero,” he warned.
“It is one of the things that the coach has stressed on in the practice sessions. Guys are working hard. For me, to them is to stay disciplined and stick to your plans both as a bowling and a batting unit.”
"We as a team don't want to get too far ahead. We have five days of Test cricket to play. We are very happy to have won the first Test. We want to buckle down. Victory has meant a lot for us. The guys are very proud of winning the first Test, but we look forward to the next five days."
The victorious captain said the focus must now be on playing even better cricket once play begins in Dhaka.
"We can improve on our first innings score to help us set the game up better. We did well in the second innings. We have to be a little sharper in the field in periods when there's probably been a partnership. We can be a little tighter," he said.
Cricket West Indies awarded the title to the Barbados Pride after deciding to cancel the last two rounds of the competition.
However, it was the Jamaican, who came out on top of the individual batting statistics.
The 28-year-old middle-order batsman had a welcome return to the form that saw him force his way into the West Indies team in June 2014. He scored 768 in 15 innings at an average of 51.20. His only hundred was the 248 he scored against the Leeward Islands Hurricanes in early March.
In addition to the double-hundred, Blackwood had six fifties that helped the Jamaica Scorpions finish the season tied with dethroned champions, the Guyana Jaguars.
Kyle Mayers of the champions was the next best run-scorer in the competition with 654 runs that included two centuries and five fifties that pushed his average up to 50.30.
Devon Smith of the Windward Island Volcanoes was prolific as usual at the regional level scoring 649 runs. However, he only averaged 46.35 even though he scored a century and four fifties.
Jamaica’s Nkrumah Bonner had the highest average of the specialist batsman and was fourth in the aggregate with 523 runs. After a shaky start to the season, he finished with two hundreds and two fifties and an average of 58.11.
The top-five was rounded out by Joshua da Silva of the Trinidad and Tobago Red Force who scored 507 runs at an average of 50.70. He scored a century and three fifties.
However, the player with the highest batting average was the Antiguan fast bowler Joseph who had a decent season with the bat scoring 235 runs at an incredible average of 117.50s. He had two 50’s in the five innings he batted for the Hurricanes.
Lasith Embuldeniya 5-35 and Man-of-the-Series Ramesh Mendis 5-66 bamboozled the West Indies, which had gone to lunch at 65-2 after facing 30.4 overs in the pre-lunch session. However, on the resumption, the Caribbean men lost their remaining eight wickets for 67 runs.
Nkrumah Bonner made 44 in another defiant performance.
After Kraigg Brathwaite was dismissed for six with the score on 15, Bonner and Jermaine Blackwood had mounted a partnership of 50 runs without much drama until Blackwood was out on the stroke of lunch for 36.
After lunch, Shai Hope (16) and Kemar Roach (13) were the only batsmen to make double figures as the Sri Lankan spinners cut through the lineup that offered little resistance as the West Indies were all out in 25.3 overs after the interval.
Resuming after lunch at 65-2, Hope and Bonner had taken the score to 92 when Mendis took three wickets - Hope, Roston Chase (0) and Kyle Mayers (0) - in the 44th over.
Holder (3) and Bonner followed shortly thereafter as the West Indies slipped further from 92-5 to 108-7 before Roach and Joshua da Silva, who remained unbeaten on four, attempted to mount another lower-order stand. However, when Roach became Embuldeniya's fourth victim at 128, it did not take long for Sri Lanka to wrap up the innings as Mendis claimed Veerasammy Permaul for one and Embuldeniya delivered the final rites when he dismissed Jomel Warrican for three.
Earlier, Sri Lanka had resumed from their overnight score of 328-8 with Man of the Match Dhananjaya de Silva on 153 and Embuldeniya on 25. The pair extended the ninth-wicket partnership of 107 to 126 before Embuldeniya was bowled by Jason Holder for 39.
De Silva remained not out on 155 as Sri Lanka declared at 345-9.
Holder finished with figures of 1-26. Veerasammy Permaul, who had eight wickets in the match, took 3-106 and Roston Chase 2-82.
Sri Lanka won the first Test by 187 runs.
