DHAKA, Bangladesh (CMC) – Defending champions West Indies remained bullish ahead of today’s crucial World Twenty20 clash against hosts Bangladesh, refusing to be daunted by Sunday’s defeat to India that triggered criticism of their running between the wickets.

Head coach Ottis Gibson told reporters here yesterday the Caribbean side were still in good spirits, and would not suddenly rearrange their entire approach to the tournament simply because of one loss.
West Indies produced a lethargic performance in their opening game to go down by seven wickets to India and with their power-hitters shackled by accurate Indian bowling, new questions are being raised about the Caribbean side’s over-dependence on boundaries.
“Some teams have players that can’t clear the rope easily so they hit the ball into spaces and run and some teams have guys that can clear the boundaries easily so it works both ways.
Based on what happened (in the last game) people will start to make assumptions but the reality is that India bowled well and yes, we didn’t get a lot of singles but we don’t normally get a lot of singles, but that’s the way it goes sometimes,” Gibson contended.
“It is about playing to your strengths. We are blessed with players who can hit the ball in the stands. I’m sure most people would love to see Chris (Gayle) standing there hitting the ball in the stands than trying to take a quick single and pull a hamstring.”
He continued: “When you look back at the game, most of our best players – Chris Gayle, Marlon (Samuels), Sunil Narine, (Dwayne) Bravo, (Darren) Sammy – they’ve all played a lot of IPL cricket and the Indians know them quite well and a lot of plans they had, worked for them. They seemed to come out of the IPL.
“Bangladesh is a different opposition and we look forward to that challenge tomorrow. We know we have to begin to win from here on if we want to remain in the competition and that’s all we are focusing on tomorrow.”
West Indies struggled badly in the early overs against India’s seam attack and were then derailed by spin, as they limped to 129 for seven off their 20 overs. Gayle’s top score of 34 required 33 balls, proof of the difficulty in scoring which the Windies experienced.
Gibson, however, argued that the Windies just needed to improve on how they read situations in the middle, instead of abandoning their aggressive batting style.
“If we are aware of what an opposition is most likely to do, you need to adjust your mindset to counteract that. We’re not going to go from a team that apparently don’t run singles – and we do sometimes – to hitting the ball and running singles,” he said.
“We need to adjust our mindset, we need to be a little bit more situation-aware and take the singles that are there for us. I would rather see some of your best players not get run-out and be there. The run-out with Chris (against India) sort of changed the game. If Chris had batted all the way to the end, we could have gotten another 30, 40 runs.”
Like India, Bangladesh are expected to employ a spin-based attack, with the likes of left-armers Shakib al Hasan and Abdur Razzak, along with off-spinner Mahmudullah, expected to play leading roles.
Gibson, who led the Windies to their T20 triumph two years ago in Sri Lanka, said West Indies did not have a problem with playing spin and expected his batsmen to approach the Bangladesh with their customary confidence.
“Our focus is one step at a time, one game at a time, one opposition at a time so our focus now is getting ready for Bangladesh. We know they’re going to come with spin and we just have to get ourselves in a position to play the spin perhaps better than we did (in the last game),” he explained.
“And if it is hitting it in the stands, then that’s what we need to do and we just need to be a little bit more aware of the situation that is presented to us at the time in the middle. We have a lot of faith in the guys that we’ve brought here, the batsmen especially; all of them have got scores when we played against England. The batsmen are full of confidence and we’re not going to let one defeat dent that confidence.”
He continued: “Spin in this format has not always been a problem for us. There have been some instances where we’ve played spin very well. The Indian spinners did bowl well, I think the whole Indian bowling attack bowled well and that proved to be the difference.
“Today gives us an opportunity to look at what happened last night (Sunday) and try and make whatever adjustments we need to make to our mindsets of playing the spin, whether it will be looking for more singles or being more diligent in trying to get the ball over the ropes.”

SQUADS:
WEST INDIES – Darren Sammy (captain), Samuel Badree, Dwayne Bravo, Johnson Charles, Sheldon Cotterell, Andre Fletcher, Chris Gayle, Sunil Narine, Denesh Ramdin, Ravi Rampaul, Andre Russell, Marlon Samuels, Krishmar Santokie, Lendl Simmons, Dwayne Smith.

BANGLADESH – Mushfiqur Rahim (capt.), Tamim Iqbal, Anamul Haque, Shamsur Rahman, Shakib Al Hasan, Mominul Haque, Nasir Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Mohammad Mahmudullah, Abdur Razzak, Sohag Gazi, Mashrafe Mortaza, Farhad Reza, Rubel Hossain, Al-Amin Hossain.