West Indies head coach Stuart Law has identified 20-year-old pacer Keemo Paul as of the few positives to emerge despite West Indies’ disappointing 2-1 Twenty20 International series loss to Bangladesh last weekend.
West Indies won the first game in St Kitts by seven wickets under Duckworth-Lewis-Stern but then lost both matches at the Central Broward Regional Park Stadium – the first by 12 runs and the second by 19 runs under DLS.
“Every game is another game [to gain] experience. There are guys like Keemo Paul, he’s come out and took wickets consistently,” the Australian explained.
“Ashley Nurse I think has improved out of sight with his spin on very good batting wickets and Andre Russell, having him back in the fray was great to see and great to watch. [His] power-hitting [in the final T20] wasn’t quite enough.
Growing into captaincy role
“Also, Carlos Brathwaite, he’s growing into the captaincy role and I’m seeing some good quality leadership in there.”
Chasing a competitive 185, West Indies lost wickets up front and then failed to keep the scoreboard ticking over as they tried to rebuild.
Russell blasted a top score of 47 from 21 balls, striking a four and half-dozen sixes but his effort was not enough to take the Caribbean side over the line, after the required run rate had rocketed to nearly 12-1/2 runs per over at the half-way stage.
When rain arrived to end the game prematurely, West Indies were 135 for seven at the start of the 18th over, still needing an unlikely 50 runs from 17 balls.
Law echoed similar sentiments to those of Brathwaite, noting the Windies needed to improve their batting, especially during the middle overs.
“We started well in St Kitts and we really bossed the game there. We came here to Fort Lauderdale and thought we had the upper hand but Bangladesh played some really good cricket,” Law pointed out.
“We probably weren’t smart enough in the tight situations. We let them get away from us a little bit in the field and then with the bat, we just didn’t rotate strike enough.
“We’ve got the power game to hit the boundaries but there were just too many dot balls in between.”
The loss was the seventh in nine T20 outings for the Windies and also marked their third straight series defeat following on from the tours of New Zealand and Pakistan.
