WEST Indies senior men’s team head coach Daren Sammy says their success is not solely reliant on the exploits of Shai Hope, but he is key.
The Barbadian has been prolific for the West Indies in India across T20Is and ODIs, with three hundreds, including a 162 and a half century in his last six outings.
The West Indies will take to the field again today, down 2-1, eyeing a series-levelling win against India in Hyderabad.
“When you look at the team that we have, we have so many match winners. It is good that Shia is in a good bit of form, and I want him to abuse that as long as possible, but if you notice in the games, Shai has done really well; he has been man of the match, but they have been supporting cast along with him. If you look at the ODI, Jangoo batted extremely well with him. In Lucknow, Sherfane Rutherford played an excellent knock, and when he was out, Romario Shepherd came in and played an excellent knock.”
Sammy, who led the West Indies as a player, says what is unique to Hope is the calmness he brings to the crease.
“The calmness he brings to the batting makes it less chaotic; he brings that calm in the middle when he is there, and maybe some of our other guys might have to adapt that calmness when the pressure is on, but he is not the only reason why we are winning games.”
The Caribbean men lost the opener to India by eight wickets, won the second game by six wickets, but lost the third on Sunday by 14 runs.
Sammy says that while he feels they have been able to match skills with India in the batting and other areas of the game, they have struggled to contain the Indians in the power play, and it has hurt them in the end.
“The difference in the game that prevented us from going 2-1 up, because we could have been 2-1 up as well, was the power play because you minus the power play we restricted India for under 10 in all three phases…for us is controlling that power play because so far we have been having to pull back the game every single time, so controlling that power play is an area we could work on.”
The West Indies head coach says their goal is to maximize with the bat and have their bowlers work hard to restrict the opposition to the smallest total possible on the good wickets for batting they have found so far in India.