West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran talked about his team’s ongoing struggles in the limited overs format and acknowledged that his team is yet to find the right rhythm in ODIs, even as they find their feet better in the other two formats.
This comes ahead of the first of three ODIs West Indies will play against India starting on July 22 with the remaining two matches to be played on July 24 and 27 with all matches to be hosted by Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad.
West Indies head into this series after having lost 3-0 at home to Bangladesh, on pitches that were rank turners and made life tough for their batters. Though West Indies won the T20Is and Tests against Bangladesh, the Tigers whitewashed the Caribbean side in the ODI format.
"Not only from my side but from a coaching side as well, our focus it to balance ODI cricket between T20 cricket and Test cricket. I think we haven't found the right template yet and everyone can see that. We're not batting 50 overs and that's the first box we want to tick.
At the moment, when you ask me what brand of cricket we want to play in ODI cricket, it's difficult to say yet. For example, if you want to play aggressive cricket, it's difficult to play aggressive cricket in tough conditions. So, for us, it's all about finding ways to bat 50 overs - it doesn't matter how we bat 50 overs - but I believe conditions do play a part in how we play our cricket," Pooran added.
Pooran however, reckoned with time his team will find the right way to approach this format as well, and he’d have better answers after his side’s home series against New Zealand (three ODIs on August 17, 19, and 21).
He added: "For us, it's ticking one box at a time and one step at a time. I believe that in T20 cricket we're starting to know what kind of cricket we want to play; in Test cricket same thing, but the more games we play as an ODI unit I think we're going to get better and a lot of the guys are going to have more games under their belt and they can have more experience and confidence as well. It will be nice if I can answer this question maybe after the New Zealand series, going by conditions and how guys react to certain situations as well."
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Pooran hopes that his team learns from the Bangladesh series debacle as they prepare to face off against the Shikhar Dhawan-led Indian team.
"I believe in the guys and believe in the talent that we have here and willingness of the guys to learn. Everyone wants to get better; everyone is asking questions. Everyone is asking how to get better and that's something I admire from the guys so far coming from the Bangladesh series. We're just looking forward to some things going our way because the guys have been putting in a lot of work and we're looking forward to this India series to correct some rights and wrongs," Pooran said.
(Cricbuzz inputs)
