Windies captain Jason Holder missed the ongoing first Test of two-match Test series against the hosts India at Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium (Rajkot) due to an ankle sprain. While the fielding coach Nic Pothas hasn’t clarified that injury, he said that Holder got that injury in their pre-season camp in Dubai.
Talking about Holder’s present condition, Pothas said, “I am not in a position to discuss Jason’s injury but he felt something in Dubai in our pre-season camp. Obviously it has not settled down as much as he or the medical staff would have liked. He will be monitored on a daily basis and we will wait and see how that pans out.”
The day one of the first Test was very hard for the visiting side, but Pothas believes they could start the day in the better way if their plans executed well.
Pothas said, “But more importantly on the day (Day One) itself, I think we could have probably started the day a little bit better and having said that Prithvi (Shaw) played really well early on, we probably did not execute as well as we would have liked on the plans but we dragged the game back very well.”
While the pacer Kemar Roach and the skipper Jason Holder are unavailable in the first Test, Shannon Gabriel was the only standout performer for Windies on the day one.
Pothas said, “Shannon has had a fantastic year, through the series against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka he bowled quick. But we know that Shannon Gabriel can bowl quick, but the most exciting part for me was at the back end of the day he was still getting it up to 145 kilometres an hour, towards the end of a very hot day on a pretty docile wicket.”
On the day one, the 18-year-old Indian debutant opener Prithvi Shaw played impressively and scored a brilliant century as the right-handed batsman scored 134 runs off 154 balls (19 fours).
Pothas told on that innings, “He is obviously a very exciting prospect for the future. But I think it would be a mess of me to make a judgement call on a very good young cricketer having seen him play only once. But certainly on today’s performance, hats off to him.”
While the stand-in-captain Kraigg Brathwaite opened the field at the early stage, Pothas has defended that decision.
The Windies fielding coach said, “You getting a spinner coming on in the first innings in the first day of the Test match is pretty new. He is not going to be spinning it past the outside edge of the bat. You put two batters in who were scoring pretty freely, it is a game of chess. You do not want the game to run away from you early in a Test match.
“I thought Kraigg did fantastically well today. I think I have also learnt having played against India a lot, Virat (Kohli) would do something pretty similar. It is tough conditions and what you do not want is to have a day that goes in excess of 400 or 420 because you keep fielders in attacking positions for too long.”
