Despite West Indies winning their first warm-up match ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup, which starts in just under a week, assistant bowling coach Roddy Estwick says the team still has some work to do. West Indies registered a comfortable 17-run win over United Arab Emirates at the Junction Oval in Melbourne on Monday.
“Every game you go into, you want to win and you want to try to plan properly and execute those plans properly. There are still one or two areas we need to work on,” Estwick said after the game. “We lost some early wickets; we did not evaluate the conditions as you would like.”
However, Estwick conceded a polished half-century from Brandon King and a sharp spell of bowling from Raymon Reifer that gave the two-time World Cup champions the warm-up victory. The stylish King led the batting with a 64-ball 45 with seven fours and two sixes, helping the West Indies post 152 for nine in their 20 overs after being sent out.
“He keeps getting better and that’s a good thing. He has an appetite for big runs. We’re looking at the phases for each batsman and when you look at Brandon’s phases it goes from one to 20 so you know he’s very capable of scoring big,” Estwick said of King who ranked number three. “…He looks in good touch and hopefully that will continue throughout the series.”
Reifer came into the bowling attack when left-hander Yannic Cariah was hit on the right hand by a rising delivery and retired from the game.
West Indies at the time required a rate of 7.5 runs per over, and Reifer got the ball rolling both ways with his left-arm medium pace, taking three wickets in the space of 11 balls as the Emirates innings The United Arab Emirates went into rapid decline.
Estwick wasn’t surprised by that performance. “With Raymond, you know what you’re going to get — you’re going to get 100 percent every time … Raymond has never let anybody down because he’s such a determined, hard-working guy, you know, so obviously you’re happy for him. when he does well,” he said.
The assistant coach was also pleased that captain Nicholas Pooran was able to score 46 off 31 balls. The captain and King had piled the innings on a 95-run stand, with the fourth wicket.
West Indies will stay in Melbourne where they have their second warm-up game against the Netherlands tonight at the MCG. First ball is at 7pm local time (4am T&T time).
From there, the Caribbean men who are in Group B of the tournament will travel to Hobart, Tasmania for the first round where they will face Scotland on October 17, Zimbabwe on October 19 and Ireland on October 21.
