LESS than a week before the start of the ICC Twenty20 World Cup 2022, West Indies’assistant and bowling coach, Roddy Estwick says the squad still has some work to do.
Despite their winning their qualifying game against the United Arab Emirates comfortably, the coach was not satisfied. Always be satisfied that your team has won; then, as coach, you can cross the t’s and dot the i’s to bring the men to their peak.
Estwick goes on to state the negative aspects of the game, such as : “We lost some early wickets; we didn’t assess the conditions as you would like,” instead of maintaining the upbeat mood of the winning team.
For instance, “how great it was to fight back from the loss of those early wickets on a difficult pitch. Publicly build up the confidence of the players, then move into the positive aspects of the performances, like the batting of Brandon King and the bowling of Raymon Reifer, all the while harping on the win and the good team effort it was.
When one’s team wins a game, the coach should always be full of praise.
Then, in the privacy of the dressing room, one can discuss the negative and positive aspects of the match with the players, thus improving the confidence of all.
The coach goes on to say that his squad “still needs work.”
How can you reach less than a week before the big occasion of a World Cup competition, win a warm-up game against one of the teams in your side’s group and state your team still needs work? But I know what you mean. You believe that your boys are short of form.
Of course they still need work – and they will until they retire from the sport. In any international competition, work is a continuous exercise.
Where have you and your team been in the past year, or even in the last three months? Where have all the coaches been, if not preparing their team for this special tournament?
And after all this work your squad still needs work? Your men should be chomping at the bit, confidently awaiting the start of the competition.
All I can say is, either the coaches are incapable of doing the job or I fear the players are not up to it. However, in the modern day the players’ abilities are mirrored in the quality of the coaching.
I wonder how first-class coaches visualise their job. Do they understand that their job is to improve the mental toughness of each player? Mental toughness is the ability to perform at your best despite the conditions, or the opposition, a mentality that strengthens the player’s resolve through renewed enthusiasm, together with a winning attitude.
However, what this sounds like to me is an excuse up front, preparing for failure.
West Indies have some fine cricketers. Their batsmen are as good as any other; their bowlers have lots of natural ability; and their fieldsmen are as sharp as the next.
However, they lack a most essential additive and that is, they don’t know how to play the game. This is called cricket intelligence – knowing what to do in a given situation.
It is in this area that the weakness of Nicholas Pooran is detec
