Simmons unhappy with batsmen performance after shocking second Test defeat
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|| Desk Report ||
West Indies head coach Phil Simmons has blamed batsmen for losing the second Test to England by 113 runs in the second Test at Old Trafford, Manchester.
Simmons warned his batsmen to convert promising starts to make significant scores as he may have to consider replacing them in the third Test at Old Trafford, starting on Friday.
“They haven’t fired, so we’ve got to take that into consideration over the next couple of days,” Phil Simmons said.
Shai Hope has averaged just 19.82 in his last 19 Tests while only reaching three half centuries since his match-winning display at Headingley in 2017 and the coach is particularly unhappy with his performance in the ongoing test series
“Yes, I’m concerned He’s gone four innings without a score (in this series) –- in contrast to how we played over the last five or six months in the other formats, I’m concerned now about his form,” said former West Indies batsman Simmons when asked about Hope’s recent form.
Another frustration for Simmons during the second Test was that while Brathwaite (75), Roston Chase (51), Jermaine Blackwood (55) and Shamarh Brooks (68 and 62) all passed fifty, none of them got to three figures.
“We’ve had five or six fifties and no one have converted to a hundred,” said Simmons.
“It’s something that we’ve been talking about a lot, and no one has taken up that opportunity in this game yet again, so it is disappointing,” he concluded.
