Lackadaisical batting letting WI down

THE EDITOR: The recent One Day International (ODI) loss against the Australian team has left a sour taste in the mouths of cricket fans across the Caribbean, inclusive of myself.

The average amount of runs scored in an ODI match is approximately 300 in a given innings according to CricketMastery.com.

On July 26, against Australia, the West Indies struggled to muster 152 runs. Team captain Kieron Pollard himself called it an embarrassment.

The real question now is, how could this have happened? Former West Indies player Sir Curtley Ambrose has been saying that for the past few months the issues with the West Indies cricket team lie primarily in their batting as opposed to their bowling.

Team performances seem to support this. I would go further and say the issue with the team’s batting falls squarely on the mentality of the players.

In the Australian tour of the West Indies alone, you can see several matches where the batting of the home team seemed to rely solely upon to skills of one, maybe two batsmen. That is to say, the majority of the players seem to have a lackadaisical approach to the game, in the hope that someone, later down the order, can pick up the slack.

This mindset was on display, especially in the second ODI match on July 24 when only three Windies players scored above 20 runs in that innings. Despite this, West Indies somehow produced a winning total.

In contrast, during the Australian innings, in their match on July 20, five of their players scored above 20 runs, resulting in an Australian victory.

Only relying on one or two players to carry the side's bating per match may achieve victory sometimes, but it is nowhere near a reliable strategy if the team wishes to remain competitive in international cricket.

I do hope the team realises the cause of their batting mistakes and seek to correct them as they have a long road of cricket still left to play, not just for themselves but for us – the fans.

STEVON JAGGASAR

Chaguanas