‘Bad habits’ costing West Indies batsmen- Test captain

West Indies Test captain Kraigg Brathwaite says bad habits and a lack of fight by the batsmen are proving to be their undoing. His comments came on the heels of another batting collapse, which resulted in a series loss for the Caribbean side.

In the first Test, West Indies were bowled out for 97 in their first innings, and in the chase of 324 in the second Test, they were at one stage 107-3.

Opener Keiran Powell played a needless shot on 51, which was the first wicket in spinner Keshav Maharaj’s hat-trick which started the slide.

In four innings in the series, West Indies did not surpass 165.

“We were disappointing, but we have some time to work at home and come back and do better, but we got to show that fight. Sometimes it is not all about winning, but still you want to see the fight and we didn’t show the fans the fight at all,” he contended at Monday’s post-match presser.

Starting Day Four 15-0, West Indies needed 309 more to level the series, but made 165 all out in 58.3 overs. Their first innings of 149 in response to South Africa’s 298, lasted just 54 overs.

“If I could speak for myself, and I look at my dismissals, sometimes you get into bad habits as batsmen and it is got try and stay out of that as much as possible.”

The opener added: “What would be good is to work some technical stuff and when you do come back, you back it 100%, and the key is to trust it and back it 100% and believe we could do the job and that belief would bring more consistency.”

Since their 2-1 series win in 2019 against England, West Indies are still searching for another home series success. They lost to India (0-2); drew with Sri Lanka (0-0) and have now lost to the Proteas (0-2).

Brathwaite, who was appointed full-time captain for the Sri Lanka series, indicated that it continues to be a learning experience and noted they cannot win all series, but they still need to show fight as batsmen.

“We were magnificent in the field, from taking catches to the bowling unit, but for the batting let ourselves down and we can look at different dismissals as a batsman but we got to learn from them. It is still a learning process, still a number of young guys [and] some guys now coming back in, but it wouldn’t use it as an excuse, we got to come better.”

From August 12, they will play Pakistan, who are currently ranked fifth, in two Tests at Sabina Park, Jamaica.