West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran admitted that his team’s performance in the ODIs has been disappointing lately, but stressed that they are not far away from identifying their strengths and winning the matches. Until then, they will put their hearts and souls out to give their best shot on the field.
The West Indies lost all their last eight ODI matches, but scoring over 300 runs in two consecutive matches against a second-string Team India is a really great sign of their improvement in ODI cricket.
Well, West Indies will try to avoid another whitewash in ODI cricket, as India will start as favorites to win the third and final ODI to be played on Wednesday (July 27) at Queen’s Oval Park.
Nicholas Pooran stated: “This game keeps teaching us different things and I'm just happy that we've had that experience. It's difficult to obviously lose, I'm disappointed, but that's where the learning takes place and as a group, we understand that and we know that for a fact, that it's our time now.”
The skipper continued, “I keep telling winning and losing is contagious and at the moment in ODI cricket we're losing and we're finding ways to lose games, but in terms of the confidence level, all the guys are ready for the challenge again. We're ready to come out there and put our hearts and souls out there and perform together as a team.”
West Indies were able to bat all 50 overs against India, which Pooran described as a significant improvement from his batting unit.
He said, “We're just starting to obviously put performances together. I don't want to come to a conclusion and say our batting is our strength or our bowling is our strength. As a team, we're still figuring it out. We haven't put a collective effort together yet, obviously, the results haven't shown that yet, but the more games we play as a unit, we're going to figure it out and we're close to crossing the line and actually figuring it out what is our strength as a team.”
He said, “I don't want to be saying that our batting is our strength or bowling is our strength. I want both facets to be our strength, to be honest. That's how we're going to win cricket games. We're just staying the moment, trying to learn as fast as possible, and sticking through these tough times as a team.”
Pooran also revealed that Shimron Hetmyer has passed his fitness test and would be available for selection for the West Indies in the future. Hetmyer was out of action since T20 World Cup 2021.
He signed off by saying, “He (Hetmyer) passed his fitness test this morning (on Tuesday morning), which is wonderful news. So, we expect him to see him back as soon as possible. I can't tell you exactly when because I'm not sure, but as soon as possible and as soon as you can get him on the field.”
(With India Today Inputs)
