THE BAD news is that on the ratings schedule in the T20 format, the West Indies (WI) T20 team lies 10th of the top 12 international cricket teams in the world.

The good news is that they have 15 matches at home between June and August to correct this imbalance. The opposition, in order of challenge, is South Africa, Australia and Pakistan.

For an idea of where we stand, all three of the above are ahead of us. Ireland, the newest kids on the block, lie behind; and so does Zimbabwe. Interestingly, ahead of WI are Bangladesh at ninth and Afghanistan at seventh. Sri Lanka are eighth but were defeated 2-1 by WI in a three-match series very recently in Antigua, although not convincingly.

WI were the champions in 2012 and 2016, both times under the encouraging and assured captaincy of Darren Sammy. In his speech at the conclusion of the final in 2016, he strongly criticised the president of Cricket West Indies, Wycliffe "Dave" Cameron. Unsurprisingly, that was the end of Sammy in WI cricket.

At present, WI have named a squad of players to prepare for another T20 World Cup (WC), the 2021 in India, if the pandemic loosens its grip on that country. The irony of the situation is that the competition was supposed to have been played in Australia in October 2020, but was cancelled because of the rampant spread of covid19 Down Under.

[caption id="attachment_891540" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Chris Gayle (left), Andre Russell (centre) and Dwayne Bravo -[/caption]

Consequently, it was switched to India, whose cricket administrators requested it. After the location change was agreed, the Aussie virus condition improved, but now the Indian subcontinent is riddled with the disease. There is only hope as to whether a tournament of this magnitude can still take place.

Nevertheless, the participating teams must continue to prepare while wishing for a positive outcome. Roger Harper, the lead selector for WI sides, got together with his assistant Miles Bascombe, plus coach Phil Simmons and chose 18 players to train for the visit of the three overseas teams.

The first will be South Africa, which will challenge WI in five T20 matches starting on June 26 and ending on July 3. This takes place in Grenada.

A week later, Australia will grace the shores of St Lucia, from July 9-16, for another five games.

Then, after just 11 days, they will engage the Pakistanis in five more matches from July 27-August 3 in Barbados and Guyana.

That is 15 days of T20 cricket in close proximity. It is a chance for valuable match practice against opponents on a higher ratings index. This will be excellent preparation for T20 WC 2021.

It will call for having fit players who can field anywhere with swiftness, clean groundwork in the pick-ups and safe hands to take catches. This makes a huge difference. Fielding is a true indication of the strength of a T20 side, because it obviously has to do with saving runs, not giving batsmen chances, dismissing them by moving quickly to get under catches, or to manufacture a run-out.

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