Pooran’s special knock

WEST Indies batsman Nicholas Pooran has credited the ‘magical’ atmosphere at the National Stadium, Providence, on Saturday as a big motivation to produce an outstanding performance.

The Trinidadian, who plays for the Guyana Amazon Warriors, and is expected to captain them at this year’s Caribbean Premier League, revealed that the familiarity in conditions and feedback from the fans was refreshing and inspiring.

Pooran cracked an unbeaten 62 from 33 balls in front of a 40 per cent allowed capacity of fully vaccinated fans.

The innings, which was laced with six sixes and four fours, was still not good enough as the hosts went down by seven runs in pursuit of 158 in the second match of the series.

“I have some experience of the wicket [pitch]. I love the Guyanese fans as well, and I just felt if I could hit a couple of balls here, that could get me going and I felt like the magic was there again, especially with the energy… I felt Guyana and Trinidadian fans are the best in the Caribbean, and I felt they needed to be entertained as well”, the West Indies T20I Vice-captain expressed.

Pooran noted that while fully-vaccinated fans were present for matches in Grenada and St. Lucia, he saw a considerably bigger number in Guyana which aided the atmosphere.

Reflecting on the match where West Indies soaked up 50 dot balls as compared to Pakistan’s 36, Pooran deemed the surface to be a bit difficult for batting but one where they should have done more strike rotation.

“The surface is a bit tricky and we saw when the [Pakistani] spinners bowled quick into the pitch, it was difficult to rotate strike. I felt even when I went in to bat, I bat like 5-7 dot balls out of 10, and I felt we could have gotten more singles there but it was tough to rotate the strike knowing that we could make up in the back end.”

Captain Kieron Pollard has stated they are working to address the matter but said he is seeing gradual improvements.

Looking ahead in the series, which West Indies can only draw 1-1 since the third match was a no- result, Pooran opined that the players must stick to their plans and the batsmen must step up and do their part to improve overall consistency.