DWAYNE BRAVO’s popularity within the West Indies’ cricket team will serve him in good stead in his new role as One-Day International (ODI) captain and also help him to bring out the best in the other players.
That assertion came from coach Ottis Gibson, a few hours before he left Barbados on Saturday evening to oversee the West Indies’ bid to win next month’s ICC Champions Trophy in England.
“Every time there is a new leader, everybody wants to impress the new leader,” Gibson said at a pre-tour news briefing at the Accra Hotel before heading for the Grantley Adams International Airport. “Everybody improves their performance [and] output, so hopefully that will happen.
“Hopefully, the guys would get behind Bravo. He is a very popular member of the side. A lot of the guys look up to him, the young guys and some of the seniors look up to him and everybody, including the management, the staff, the players and myself would get behind him and give our full support.
“My job as coach is to make his job as captain as easy as possible and give him the support he needs. The thing about it is that we all have to be pulling in the same direction.
“Once we come together as a strong unit, as we saw in Sri Lanka, we know what we are capable of doing,” Gibson said.
Bravo, the Trinidadian all-rounder, takes over the captaincy of the ODI side from Darren Sammy, who remains as Test and One-Day captain.
Bravo averages just 23.82 with the bat in 137 ODIs but has taken 160 wickets at 30.06 apiece and an economy rate of 5:32 runs per over.
“‘Brav’ … is somebody that has always been a leader within the group anyway so the fact that he’s captain now, means that he gets to put his own mark on the team and lead in his own style,” added Gibson.
He also noted that the presence of former West Indies wicketkeeper Courtney Browne on tour as a selector will be an asset to the side, especially since he played an instrumental role in the regional team winning the title when the Champions Trophy was last held in England in 2004.
“When you look back at the 2004 win, [you realized] the importance of staying calm, when you watched how Browne and [Ian] Bradshaw approached it.
“At the end of their innings, you didn’t see any sort of blind panic. You saw them taking their time. They were very strategic,” Gibson recalled.
“When we get under pressure, hopefully these are the sort of conversations that Browne would be having with the players about staying calm in pressure situations. It then allows you to make good and clear decisions.”
