Jermaine Blackwood was West Indies' top run-scorer in Tests against England and New Zealand.
West Indies vice-captain Jermaine Blackwood recalled a conversation with Indian skipper Virat Kohli, and said that it has helped him with his mindset for batting in Test matches.
Jermaine Blackwood's career has been a roller coaster ride. Having made 63 on his debut against New Zealand in 2014, and 112* in his sixth Test, against England in 2015, Blackwood impressed everyone with his batting abilities.
But rather than taking off from there, Blackwood's form faltered and, after a series of low scores, he found himself out of the side for three years.
However, on his comeback, Jermaine was the top run-scorer for West Indies in Test series against England and New Zealand, having made 427 runs with a century and three fifties, averaging 42.70 in the combined five Tests.
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Ahead of two-match series in Bangladesh, Blackwood recalled a conversation Virat Kohli and said that it has helped him with his mindset for batting in Test matches.
“I don't really have a lot of conversations with international players. I talked to Virat Kohli a few times as well, on social media. The last time India toured the Caribbean, I had a chance to talk to him in Jamaica when I was there subbing.
So after the game, I just had a small conversation. I asked him about how all the time that I have a lot of half-centuries and one century.
“He just said, what will you do when you score a century, how many deliveries did you face? I said I faced 212 balls. He said, that's it, once you can bat some balls, you're gonna score runs. So, I took a big thing from that.
After that conversation, I tell myself that once I can bat over 200 or 300 balls, the way I bat, I can score runs regardless of who I am playing against or where I am playing,” Jermaine Blackwood said.
Blackwood further recalled a conversation with Andre Russell and revealed how the later helped him with his game.
"Me and Russell did a lot of talking. We are very close. I need to improve in kicking on and getting more hundreds. We mostly talk about my shot selections. When I started playing for West Indies, I was young and excited. My style of batting was to play a lot of shots and put the bowlers under pressure,” he said.
"What I learned was that you can't make a hundred in an over or two. You have to spend hours at the crease. I did a lot of talking with Russell, and he gave me a lot of pointers on what I needed to do.
Not because just T20s. He only played one Test match, but he is a guy who knows his cricket." he added.
Addressing the upcoming Test series against Bangladesh, Blackwood was confident of West Indies chances and said he wouldn't change his role.
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"I am not really going to change my role. For the last two series, I have been scoring runs. My goal is to continue to score runs, and just to win some more games for the team. I think this unit is a good one. I can see the hunger. We have been training very hard for the past couple of weeks.
“I can see that we are trying new things, and they are working pretty well. I have full confidence in this batting unit to get the job done. John Campbell, Kraigg Brathwaite, young Moseley, myself and Josh is, I think, a decent line-up. Once we can stick to our gameplan, I don't see no way we can't post some good totals," he concluded.
The two-match Test series between Bangladesh and West Indies will kick start from 3rd February in Chittagong, Bangladesh.
(News 18 inputs)