By Neto Baptiste
Iconic former fast bowler, Sir Curtly Ambrose, has commended the senior men’s West Indies team for what he considers an improved performance from both a physical and mental standpoint in their recent series against Sri Lanka here in Antigua.
The two Test series ended in a draw with both matches finishing in stalemates at the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Ground.
“You can see that the guys are putting a lot more thought into the cricket which is very good to see. They have been patient, they try to construct their innings in terms of the batting and even in the bowling department, you could see they were really trying to bowl in good areas and not just trying to get a wicket every ball so there were quite a few positives so I would say I have seen some improvement,” he said.
A taker of 405 Test wickets, Sir Curtly was however disappointed over what he deemed a lack effort to push for a win in the second Test.
“I think that we didn’t show enough intent to try and win that game. We batted too long in my opinion, we took too long to score the runs which means we didn’t have enough time to bowl out Sri Lanka on a very placid surface and I thought that the urgency in getting those quick runs wasn’t there. We batted too long,” he said.
The Antiguan, who provided commentary during the series, believes the home team scored too slowly, thus failing to put pressure in the Sri Lankans.
“We know the captain Kraigg Brathwaite isn’t going to take an attacker path. He is one of those guys who are going to bat for long and accumulate his runs and nothing is wrong with that. Kyle Mayers we know, will go on the attack but I thought that later on, after Kyle Mayers got out, we should have at least sent Jimbo [Rahkeem Cornwall] or Alzarri Joseph ahead of Da Silva to get some quicker runs so we could have enough time after declaration to try and bowl out Sir Lanka. Sending Da Silva to me wasn’t a good move at that particular stage,” Sir Curtly said.
West Indies had previously won the T20 and ODI series all played here in Antigua.