By Neto Baptiste
Recently appointed white-ball captain of the West Indies men’s cricket team, Nicholas Pooran, must be given time to adapt to his new role as a leader.
This is the view of successful former captain and legendary batsman, Sir Vivian Richards, who came to the Trinidadian’s defence following a 3-0 series loss to Pakistan last week.
“We have to give him a chance and not because of the losing factor as such, but I felt they came up against a team that was much more competitive than when they went to Holland. Sometimes, when you lose, if you can’t take away something that is positive from that to make you better in the future, then something wrong so I guess they’d be thinking along that particular line,” he said.
In Pooran’s first ODI series as captain, West Indies defeated Netherlands 3-0 but were dominated by Pakistan in the following three-match ODI series played in Pakistan.
Sir Viv suggested that that the West Indies were simply beaten by a better team on match days.
“In the first match, I felt we were highly competitive but Pakistan got a good run and Pakistan is a good batting team and you’re playing in these sort of conditions with flat tracks so you have to be precise when it comes to your bowling, you have to be on point and if you’re not then Pakistan is going to take full advantage of that,” the Antiguan said.
Pooran failed to get going in any of the series, picking up scores of seven, 10 and seven in the three matches against the Netherlands and scores of 21, 25 and 11 in three matches against Pakistan.