‘West Indies batsmen pace shy’

Fri, Jun 25, '21

Director of cricket, Jimmy Adams, has hinted at a worrying deficiency among West Indies batsmen in playing high-quality fast bowling and believes the solutions lie at the domestic first-class level where there were not enough “hard, true” pitches to properly prepare players for the demands of international cricket.

Conceding the home side’s batsmen did “not fire at all” in the just-concluded Test series against South Africa in St Lucia, Adams said there was a trend dating several years, where it appeared players were uncomfortable with concentrated fast bowling, which raised questions about not only technique but familiarity with pace.

“If I go back a couple of years when England came here [in 2019], we bowled them out for a low total in the first innings [of the first Test in Barbados] and then we had a really good innings from Jason (Holder) and I think Shane Dowrich made a hundred, which was the partnership which built our lead in that Test match,” Adams said in reference to West Indies’ historic 381-run win inside four days at Kensington Oval.

“Then we won in Antigua in the next Test match and then we lost the last Test in [St Lucia]. And I remember in that last Test, and even in the Test match in Antigua where the wicket offered a bit more bounce, England played a more fast bowling centric attack in those two Tests than they did in the first Test in Barbados, where they had a world-class fast bowler (Stuart Broad) with over 400 Test wickets being dropped for the first Test in favour of a left-arm swing bowler.”

Read more at Barbados Today