West Indies and South Africa will play 2 Tests and 5 T20Is from June 26.
West Indies head coach Phil Simmons has set a target to improve his team's bowling attack in the upcoming two-match Test series against South Africa starting on Thursday (June 10) in St Lucia.
Simmons has admitted that the West Indies has a brilliant pace attack that always kept them in the fight against the opposition and in the upcoming Test series in South Africa, both teams have that strength, but still, the head coach is hoping to bowl out the hosts in the series.
Well, the South Africa team has also a lot of young players in the team and not having much good in the Test cricket recently, but Simmons has warned West Indies not to be complacent against the “strong” Proteas side, as the tourists aim to win their first-ever Test series in the rainbow nation.
Simmons told reporters on Tuesday (June 8), “The improvement I would like to see for this series is our ability to take 20 wickets. We did in Bangladesh on helpful pitches, and when the pitch was not helpful in Antigua (against Pakistan), we struggled.”
He further added, “Our fast bowling department has been strong for a long now. They are the ones that have kept us in matches, bowling out teams when it did not appear likely.”
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Due to the retirement of a couple of cricketers recently, South Africa’s batting line-up looks quite vulnerable but the touring coach has insisted that “any team you come up against, you have to look for where you can exploit them.” He continued, “They are very strong at the top with the captain (Dean Elgar) and then later down the order with guys like (Quinton) de Kock.”
Simmons also asked his team to be 100% better than what they did in Bangladesh recently and to be at their top of the game to win the games in South Africa and improve their rankings in Tests.
He signed off by saying, “We have to step it up and be 100% better than we were when we played our last game. We are up to six (in the Test rankings) and that is just the start of things. We want to be up at the top and we have to play as though we want to be there.”
Noteworthy, West Indies have won only three of their 28 Tests against South Africa with the last victory came back in 2007. The two teams have not met in the longer format of the game since 2015.
(With Reuters Inputs)