-Vinay Kumar
In the first group match of the ICC T20 World Cup, 2022, two-time world champion West Indies lost to Scotland (SCO vs WI T20 World Cup, 2022 Australia). The defeat left the coach of the team, Phil Simmons in a tizzy. He gave a stern warning to his country’s team.
Coach Phil Simmons told the players of the West Indies team to ‘wake up’ and prepare themselves. Because, in the next match, he will have to win by defeating Zimbabwe (WI vs ZIM T20 World Cup, 2022) recently. It is worth noting that in their first match of this world played against Scotland, only 4 batsmen of the West Indies team could score runs in double digits, the rest could not even touch the figure of 10 runs. Scotland had scored 160 while batting first. Chasing a target of 161 runs for victory, the West Indies team were bundled out for 118 runs in 18.3 overs with 9 balls to spare.
Phil Simmons said after the end of the match, “Obviously our batting was unprofessional. We have to wake up and become as professional as possible in batting. The bowlers are working hard and giving us good results, but the betters are not keeping up. Batsmen have to pay a lot of attention to their wicket. We have to up our run rate.”
Simmons further said that it does not matter who we are against. But, we need to deal with losing wickets continuously.
The coach praised the bowlers
West Indies coach Phil Simmons praised the bowlers of his team, saying that the bowlers are performing well and will continue to do so. When we take the field in the next match (WI vs ZIM T20 World Cup, 2022) on Wednesday, then surely we will play with new thinking while removing our shortcomings.