Assistant coach Roddy Estwick is confident defending champions West Indies could bounce back from their terrible start to the ICC Men’s Twenty20 World Cup when they face South Africa on Tuesday in Dubai.
The Windies will be returning to the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, the scene of the debacle this past Saturday, where they slumped to a six-wicket defeat against England, folding for an embarrassing 55 inside 15 overs before Eoin Morgan’s side romped to victory inside nine overs.
Estwick strongly feels they could quickly regroup from the England loss by defeating the South Africans.
“One bad game doesn’t make a summer,” he said. “We realised we had a bad game. We’ve had a chat about it. The players had some volleyball (on Sunday) to help them to relax to try to build some team spirit.
“The one thing you can do once you lose a game is you can look for all the excuses in the world. You can nit-pick all you want. You’ve got to back the players.”
He added: “Our job is to get the players up, make sure they remain confident, make sure they still believe in their ability, make sure the dressing room is still a happy place and let them go enjoy the game of cricket, because that’s why they started playing.
Estwick said the players start playing cricket because they enjoy doing it.
“They’re fortunate enough that they became international superstars, and they are representing their country.
But at the end of the day, it’s all about enjoyment and once the enjoyment comes first and the attitude is right, then your skill level will remain high, and your discipline will remain very high.”
A win in the match is very crucial for West Indies because they also face Sri Lanka, Australia, and Bangladesh in their remaining Group 1 matches.
Estwick said a solid batting display was needed because they recognised they cannot afford any further major slip-ups with the top two teams from each of the two groups advancing to the semi-finals.
“We can’t hide behind the fact that we didn’t bat well,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who played. As a batting unit, we didn’t do well enough. We didn’t do ourselves justice and to start with, if you’re going to get bowl out in 14-point odd overs in a T20 game, it just tells you that we didn’t bat well enough.
“But we’ve got to bounce back. We’ve got to work hard to get that right. And that’s going to be very important for us. We’ve got to make sure that whoever walks on that park is ready, is prepared well enough to go and execute the skills and have enough confidence in their own ability to do what is needed.”
One of the proven match-winners for West Indies is talismanic left-handed batsman Chris Gayle, whose place in the side and at No.3 in the batting order continues to be open to question.
Gayle got the top score of 13 against England but Estwick said the veteran Jamaican plays an important role in the team, on and off the field.
“Chris is very experienced,” he said. “Chris has been a wonderful servant for West Indies cricket. We still expect great things from him, but he also adds a lot in terms of addressing the room and helping the younger players.
“Sometimes we tend to just look at performances and we tend to think that the numbers don’t match up. But there’s a lot more to a cricketer, and there’s a lot more to an experienced player in terms of the dressing room, in terms of helping the youngsters, in terms of helping them to field as well.”
Estwick said: “What people tend to forget as well is Chris offers a spin option. If you look at when we played against Australia, Chris bowled well, so there’s a lot of roles that Chris must play within the team.
“Just don’t look at the performance. Look at in the past, he’s done very, very well at the World Cup leve and I’m sure before the tournament is finished, he will do well again.”
South Africa too, appreciate that they did not have an ideal day with the bat in their World Cup opener against Australia, which they lost, but the Proteas will fancy their chances, having beaten the Windies 3-2 in June in the Caribbean in a five-match series.
Squads:
WEST INDIES (from): Kieron Pollard (captain), Dwayne Bravo, Roston Chase, Andre Fletcher, Chris Gayle, Shimron Hetmyer, Akeal Hosein, Evin Lewis, Obed McCoy, Nicholas Pooran, Ravi Rampaul, Andre Russell, Lendl Simmons, Oshane Thomas, Hayden Walsh Jr.
SOUTH AFRICA (from): Temba Bavuma (captain), Quinton de Kock, Bjorn Fortuin, Reeza Hendricks, Heinrich Klaasen, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Wiaan Mulder, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Rassie van der Dussen.
UMPIRES: Aleem Dar (Pakistan), Paul Reiffel (Australia).
TV UMPIRE: Chris Brown (New Zealand).
MATCH REFEREE: David Boon (Australia).
RESERVE UMPIRE: Chris Gaffaney (New Zealand).
START: 6 a.m. (East Caribbean Time).
