Newly appointed West Indies captain Denesh Ramdin has expressed concern over his side’s batting, and wants to see a bigger effort before the first Test against New Zealand which starts in eight days.
The West Indies batsmen generally struggled in a three-day match against a Barbados Select XI which ended Wednesday. Darren Bravo got 124 and Kirk Edwards, 50, in the first innings of the fixture at 3Ws Oval but no other batsman got a half-century.
‘All the guys are putting in the work that is required leading up to the first Test match. We had the three-day practice match and our batters didn’t get their time out in the middle that they would have liked. The bowlers had a good outing, they bowled out the opposition quite cheaply. In the second innings (our batsmen) had poor selection of shots. I would like to see the guys settle down and bat a bit longer. In the build up to the first Test we would like the guys to put in the extra work, Ramdin said on Sunday.
‘We have a two-day practice match and hopefully they can put in that work and try and bat sometime in the middle as we get prepared for the first Test in Jamaica which is a very crucial first match,’ he added.
Of concern will be stroke-maker Marlon Samuels who gathered scores of nine and four, and left-handed opener Kieran Powell who got nine and 22. Samuels struggled this year in the Twenty20 WC and in the ODI series against England. He also looked out of touch against New Zealand last year, managing just 117 runs from six innings and in the previous two-Test series against India, scoring a mere 99 runs from four innings.