CARDIFF, England,  (CMC) – West Indies fast bowler Jayden Seales has given the assurance that the regional team will produce a much better performance against England in today’s crucial second One Day International (ODI).

The visitors were outplayed in every department in the opening ODI on Thursday in a 238-thrashing that ranks among one of their worst-ever defeats.

However, Seales, who was the lone bright spark in the match with a four-wicket haul while also top scoring with an unbeaten 29, said the team had reviewed its performance and was aware of the mistakes it made.

He said the bowlers especially needed to contain England’s explosive batting lineup, which amassed 400 runs in the opening ODI.

The West Indies need to win the remaining two matches to capture the three-match series.

“We had a few discussions, a few honest and open discussions about where we went wrong as a bowling group and we obviously realised early enough that the ball wasn’t swinging much in the first game and we still went searching a bit, and I was very guilty of that, so that’s one thing we are looking to improve on,” Seales said.

“And just trying to contain as much as possible, have the right field set and try to force the batsmen to hit where we have the deep fielders and just stick to the basics for as long as possible.

“At the end of the day, in the power play the batsmen will obviously try to be aggressive, so it’s for us to control our lengths and our lines and hold it for as long as possible until the batsmen try something differently and then in the middle overs and the depth it’s all about execution for all of us,” he added.

Despite the struggles of the West Indies batsmen, which saw them being bowled out for a paltry 162, Seales said he was confident they would show up to the party in the second ODI.

He said the batting unit had shown over the past few months that they could get the job done.

“The batsmen have been really good for us, giving us the big scores, allowing us to be free when we go into bowl to defend a total, so I think it’s just more of the same.

“We had a bad game batting second in that first ODI. I’m not really concerned about it because we all know where we went wrong individually and collectively as a group,” Seales said.

“We knew coming into this series that we had to win if we wanted to jump ahead of England…so it’s just for us to win this series now and gain as much points as possible leading up to the 2027 Cricket World Cup.”