West Indies coach Phil Simmons has admitted that his batsmen need to work on their technique after their 2-0 series loss against South Africa. Not only did the West Indies lose both the Tests by significant margins within four days, but they also failed to cross 200 in any of their four innings. He was dismissed for 97 in his first innings of the first Test, his lowest score against South Africa, which Simmons indicated was an example of a wider problem.
"In that first Test match, we got caught playing too far from our bodies and when a wicket is doing that much in that Test match, it's damaging to you and we saw that in getting out for 97," Simmons he said.
The conditions were bowler-friendly, with plenty of movement in the air and outside the seam and good bounce on offer, and although Simmons noted that the West Indies really wanted to host South Africa on slower surfaces in Trinidad, he mourned the conditions. St Lucia did not and said the groundkeeper has been "very helpful" in providing what West Indies asked for. "Maybe the pitch in the first test match had a little more moisture than we expected. The pitch for the second test match, we got what we wanted."
And the performance in the second test was slightly better. He said, "Some players came back from it and in the second test match we saw some players scoring 40 and 50 but at the same time, we need to assess the whole situation of the game and know that we need to stay tight. Needed. To put pressure on him for some time. When he got two wickets, he ran from us."
Between them, West Indies scored only two fifties in the series – Roston Chase's 62 in the second innings of the first Test and Kieran Powell's 51 in the second innings of the second Test – and although Simmons was concerned about that, he did not think of the line-up. Up was incapable of scoring big "Last two series that we played, we have got totals above 200. It is a matter for us to assess what we did differently and try to make sure that the coming In Tests we get back where we were," he said.
West Indies scored two hundreds and six fifties against Sri Lanka and one hundred and six fifties against Bangladesh, so Simmons knows there is potential, but the players need to find form. He said the volume of cricket and the training set-up on different islands has hindered the continuity of players to hone their skills.
"When we leave a tour we always have to work on things. Tours come early these days so we have to fix little things over and over again. We did some work on facing spin, and now we have to work on things." Need some work on the fast bowling," he said. "I don't think high quality preparation is happening in the regions. A lot of players come to us and we increase the intensity. More needs to be done in the regions. But this is something we have been saying for a long time. It's time."