West Indies vice-captain Roston Chase has called on the team’s batting line-up to give more support to the bowling unit, particularly as it relates to putting up strong first innings performances.

Ahead of the start of the New Zealand tour, the Windies batting struggles have been well documented.  In their previous series against England, the team’s batting average teetered at around 27.86 and that was one of the team’s best in recent years.

The team’s highest batting average in a Test series consisting of at least two matches since 2017 is 34.66 and that was against Zimbabwe in 2017.

While they have struggled at the crease, however, the team has developed a strong bowling line-up, a four-pronged attack that consists of captain Jason Holder, Shannon Gabriel, Kemar Roach, and Alzarri Joseph.

“What I would like to see improve overall is the batting of the team.  I think that our bowlers have been doing brilliantly for us, but we have not been getting big enough scores for them to bowl at,” Chase told members of the media from the team’s training camp in New Zealand.

“Mainly in the first innings, the first innings sets up the game for the whole Test match.  Once you put the team under pressure with a good first innings total, they’ll always be chasing the game and that is a good thing to have the opposition doing in Test cricket…as a batting unit we need to give the bowlers more to work with.”