You want West Indies to be good at Test cricket? You want them to win matches consistently and not just a one-off Test victory every now and then? Then give them regular opportunities to play more Tests. Otherwise, it is very difficult to expect them to perform when they get to play Test series every six months. That is how West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite put in a nutshell the predicament of his inexperienced Test team and why the visitors lost the Richards-Botham Trophy 3-0 to England.
This is the second Test series Brathwaite's team had played so far this year, having drawn the two-match series in Australia in January. Though several players featured in the domestic four-day West Indies Championship between February and mid-April, only a few had any real experience of English conditions by the time West Indies arrived in July for the Test series. A three-day warm-up match against the ECB's County Select XI at Beckenham, which was affected by a rain on a slower pitch, was their only preparation ahead of the Lord's Test.
Undercooked and underprepared, that was the general theme that underpinned West Indies' plight this series. Brathwaite, though, said he was "excited" to look ahead with West Indies playing South Africa in a two-Test home series, which starts in Trinidad from August 7. "I'm very excited that we have two Test matches in a week's time because we need more cricket," Brathwaite said at the post-match presentation on Sunday afternoon. "Being in this competitive and this intense international game, when you are playing it more against good players, you will improve. [When Test series are] being spaced six months apart, it's kind of tough."
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