Sir Curtly: Fix Regional Pitches If Batsmen Are To Improve

0
34
Sir Curtly Ambrose (center) chats with West Indies bowlers during a session when he was employed as bowling consultant.
- Advertisement -

By Neto Baptiste

Inadequate pitches in the Caribbean have led to the inability of batsmen to negotiate aggressive and short-pitched bowling at the International level.

This is according to legendary fast bowler, Sir Curtly Ambrose, who has renewed calls for the preparation of better pitches during the Cricket West Indies (CWI) regional tournament which he believes would aid in the development of both bowlers and batsmen.

“Our batsmen play in the regional competitions where the ball bounces just about waist-height, so they are comfortable. But as soon as we go outside of the Caribbean and the ball is bouncing a bit, 90 percent of them don’t know what to do. They have poor technique so I believe we need to prepare bouncier tracks in the region and let our batsmen learn to play short-pitch bowling because once a team realises you are vulnerable to short-pitched bowling, they are going to pepper you and you’re not going to survive,” he said.

Many pundits drew the conclusion that West Indies batsmen were intimidated by the aggression shown by the England bowlers during the recent Test series.

Sir Curtly is convinced that this was, in fact, the reality with many of the regional batsmen.

“I watched the game quite a bit and most of them are suspect to short-pitched bowling which isn’t very West Indian like. I never think I would live long enough to see West Indians struggling against short-pitched bowling and I believe that stems from the slow surfaces we have been playing on here for a number of years,” the former player said.

West Indies struggled with the bat through the tour, losing the series 2-1 and surrendering the Wisden Trophy.

- Advertisement -