People back at home deserve a Christmas gift: Brathwaite
|| CF Correspondent ||
West Indies T20I skipper Carlos Brathwaite vows to give his countrymen a Christmas gift by winning the T20I series against Bangladesh and thereby end the year on a high. The first of three-match begins on Monday at the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium.
Following their whitewash in two-match Test series and 2-1 drubbing at the hands of Bangladesh in ODI series, Brathwaite feels that T20 is the format in which they could excel to restore some pride.
“The people back home deserve a Christmas gift,” Brathwaite said during the pre-match conference of first T20 on Sunday.
“We hope to close out the year with a win. We still think T20 is our premier format. We obviously haven’t had the results to be in the recent past proud of. But here’s a chance to turn things around and ending 2018 in a good way.”
To materialize their aspiration, Brathwaite urges his players to show passion and hunger as he wants to finds way to win in a more consistent basis.
“If we are more professional how we do things, especially with the bat, that passion and hunger will take us over the line and not just close to the line. We want to find ways to win in a more consistent basis,” he added.
And winning in consistent basis is the only way to give the West Indies cricket a lifeline, Brathwaite said. He comment came in the wake of the tumultuous situation of West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) who over the years has been at loggerheads of the players, regarding pay dispute and other. As a result, West Indies continuously become weakened as the senior players continue to keep withdrawing from the squad.
In the wake of the situation, West Indies haven’t been gathering any full strength side in any series since 2006. The ultimate loss is for West Indies cricket and for its cricket crazy people.
Brathwaite said the players need to find the way to win the game despite all those adversities hovering around and do something for the Caribbean people.
“We have had some informal chats about it. We can’t do much as players if we continue to lose. We don’t have much power or say. The group of players needs to find a way to win, regardless of who is and who is not selected,” said Brathwaite.
“When we start to win, we can pull on experiences on learning how to win games. Evidently you become more experienced and confident, and start creating your own brand of cricket. We haven’t been able to, because of a lot of chopping and changing for different reasons. The feeling in the dressing room is that whenever a team is picked for a tour, we put our heads together as a unit, and find a way to win games. Once we do that, West Indies cricket will find a way to the top, whichever format.”
