Dyson preaches patience as WI chase win

Sat, Apr 5, '08

"In talking about patience, when I watch Caribbean cricket all round, that's an aspect that's not there in any Caribbean cricket so to suddenly take these players and put them in the Test arena against some very good teams and expect them to have that patience is a tall order," Dyson told journalists after being questioned about the West Indian fast bowlers seeming inability to maintain a miserly line and length.

The head coach who is in his second series in charge said that he is pleased with the progress being made by Jerome Taylor who took four wickets in the Sri Lankan second innings of the Second Digicel Test match at the Queen's Park Oval.

"We (Windies players and team management) talk a lot of times about patience and about the areas you need to bowl and about Test cricket and not trying too much too often, whether that is sinking in or whether it is a matter of experience and the longer someone plays the more the absorb by watching, by listening, by seeing other class performers do the job, it could be a matter of that," Dyson said of Taylor's increasing ability to be more patient when he bowls.

"Jerome Taylor is a very good cricketer, if you look at him as a total package he is a bit like Vassy (Chaminda Vaas), he has the ability to bat and I've seen him change his approach in his batting and his bowling is about always very, very good," Dyson assessed of the 23 year old fast bowler who debuted against Sri Lanka in 2003 in the Caribbean and has played and has played 18 Test matches since, picking up 55 wickets at an average of 35.41.

And Sri Lankan middle order batsman, Thilan Samaraweera who scored a century in the Sri Lankan second innings said that Taylor was the most difficult bowler to handle during the Digicel Test Series.

"The most difficult right through this series has been Jerome Taylor, he bowled well, lovely line and length and his balls move both ways, I think he is the most difficult bowler right through this series," Samaraweera said.

And Dyson hinted that it will take more time for the other bowlers to trust in the team plans and bowl with commitment to it.

"We have talked about length and about the zones they need to bowl and about bowling to our plan (but) things don't happen overnight, it takes time for people to get confidence in bowling plans, maybe my ideas are different to the people who were there before but we're consistently working on the areas we bowl (and) the patience involved in the whole game," Dyson lamented.

He says he would like to see greater consistency on the field to support the consistency he is seeing in the practice sessions.

"The guys do work hard in the net sessions we have, I've seen consistency with that, in the middle sometimes we bowl some brilliant stuff, at times perhaps too good where players just can't nick them. We need to achieve more consistency throughout the whole innings, we tend to bowl some really good spells and then let ourselves down with bowling a bad hour that cost us a lot of runs," Dyson reasoned.

"We're getting better at maintaining the performance over the day and maintaining enthusiasm and the energy level over the whole day, what I'd like to see tomorrow is some good sensible batting over the whole day," Dyson concluded as the West Indies need 253 runs to win the Second Digicel Test and draw the Digicel Test Series which Sri Lanka leads 1-0.

Sri Lanka made 278 and 268 respectively while in their first innings West Indies made 294 and they now have the final two days of the game to achieve the score.