… believes newbies have enough talent to deliver the goods

By Clifton Ross

RECENTLY appointed West Indies One Day International (ODI) captain Jason Mohammed is putting all his faith into his young unit, with hopes of upsetting hosts Bangladesh, come next week when the 3-match series bowls off.
The 34 year-old Trinidadian was recalled after two years away from the Windies senior team and was reinstated as ODI skipper, after the majority of the regular unit opted out of the Bangladesh tour due to COVID-19 related concerns.
Speaking on ZOOM Thursday morning, Mohammed said he was elated to have another crack at international cricket and wants this run to count for something.
“It was a very happy moment when I got that call to represent the West Indies. Being out of the squad for two years now, I’m happy to be back, more importantly I want to do my best and try and lead the team to a series win.”

He continued, “It’s the second time this has happened, I’m happy to do it personally for me. It’s a great honour and achievement. Growing up, you always want to play for the West Indies but leading the team is a greater honour. Sometimes things come in different ways and I just have to grab the opportunity,” said Mohammed.
Mohammed, who captained the side against England roughly 4 years ago, said his previous experiences as skipper will no doubt play a huge role in his upcoming assignment against the Tigers.
“I’ve done it before in an ODI and a couple T20 games, obviously I have some experience. I’ve been captaining coming through the youth ranks and captaining teams for a long period of time, but obviously this is the biggest stage; it’s international cricket. It’s something I’m looking forward to and looking forward to leading the Caribbean team”.
With the Windies camp already dismissing talks of their current unit being ‘second-stringed”, the ex-West Indies Under-19 player further doubled down on the notion, admitting that he’s fully confident in his arsenal of weapons. “It’s not a lot of senior guys around. It’s a lot of young faces and guys making their debut. My job is to try and make them as relaxed as possible and try to guide them on the field. It’s not much you can really do at international level, I think everyone understands his game well, it’s just for me to go through the plans and try and execute that.” the captain said.

Ironically, the right-hander’s last international appearance was against the Bangladeshis and with 4 half-centuries under his belt from the 26 matches played, Mohammed admitted that despite no real cricket due to COVID-19, he has still been keeping fit and playing when he can with the National team back home.
“Personally, I haven’t played a cricket game in a couple of months because of COVID-19. But I have been doing some training with the Trinidad and Tobago senior team and we have a few games here which will be important for the series. So for me I just want to hit as many balls as possible and look forward to three good games this series,” he added.
Wrapping up, Mohammed added that apart from their plans to do well, coupled with their confidence level, it is ideally important not to underestimate the home team.
He believes that should the Windies seek a win, they must first adapt and look to combat the obvious wide array of spinners which the Tigers will use as their main weapon in the pursuit of a series win.
“Coming into any team in their hometown is difficult. Watching Bangladesh over the years, they rely on spin so I think the conditions will suit their spinners at home. But it’s something that we’re aware of, we had our first practice and the pitch was a bit on the slow side. We have to try our best to conquer that,” he concluded.