Failure to assess quickly cost West Indies – Powell

CASTRIES, St Lucia (CMC):

WEST INDIES captain Rovman Powell strongly believes that if his batters had better assessed the conditions in the just-concluded T20I series against England, they might have been on the winning end.

England captured the best-of-five series 3-1 after Sunday’s final T20I at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground was rained out with only five overs of play possible.

The visitors won the toss in the first three matches at Kensington Oval in Barbados and sent the Windies in to bat on each occasion, with the home side’s batsmen struggling to come to grips with the conditions.

In the first two matches they lost three wickets inside the power play and in the third game they lost five inside the first six overs.

Trailing 3-0, the West Indies’ batters showed up to the party in the fourth T20I on their way to completing a historic run chase by posting 221 for five, the highest ever at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground.

Speaking during the post-match ceremony on Sunday, Powell said failure to properly assess those conditions in the opening matches ultimately led to them losing the series.

“It’s been a tough series. I think a lot of credit has to be given to Jos and his team, they really came in our conditions and dominated.

“But having said that, I think we played good cricket in patches, just that we didn’t play good cricket for long enough periods,” said Powell, the second highest run scorer in the series with 153 runs, behind England’s Phil Salt, who scored 162.

“I think we always as a batting group have a template that we try to work with, but unfortunately the template didn’t work in our first few games.

“But as a team we need to assess a little bit faster. It took us about two or three games to really wonder what’s really happening to us as a batting group, and also as a bowling group, we need to sharpen up on a few areas,” he added.

With the West Indies set to play Bangladesh in three T20Is next month, Powell said there were still some positives to take away from the England series.

“The way we played the last game, we showed that we can play really good cricket.

“You know if we just assessed a little bit earlier in the series, it possibly would have been a different series, but a lot of credit has to be given to Jos and his team …” Powell said.