Windies captain Jason Holder calls for patience to get success in Test cricket. To achieve success in the longer international format, Holder said the top-order batting need to perform consistently.
In the recently concluded two-match away Test series against the hosts India, which Windies lost by 2-0 after both Tests were lasted for just three days, Windies batting really disappointed the cricket fans. Three out of four times, Windies were bundled out for under 200. The top-order batsmen failed to provide the good starts and it hampered in their game-plans.
Talking about team’s performances in the longer format, Holder said, “In my short tenure as a Test cricketer (the one thing I’ve learnt is that) you’ve got to be patient and build on what performance you intend to put on. You can look and honestly say we didn’t put enough runs on the board. Quite for some time now we’ve been relatively inconsistent and that has really let us down in the recent past. We haven’t been getting the runs we’ve been looking for. Anybody knows that in any cricketer if you ask the top five-six batsmen get the bulk of runs. It hasn’t been happening. We have heavily relied on middle and lower half which is not ideal. So we need to rectify at the top. The guys in the top five have to put hands up and come to the party.”
After this Test series, Windies will now play the limited-overs series against the hosts India. Then, Windies will travel to Bangladesh where they will begin with the two-match Test series, followed by three-match ODI and T20I series.
Windies skipper Holder is expecting more spin-friendly pitches during the Test series in Bangladesh. He also feels happy with the present Test wickets in India.
Holder said, “We are headed to Bangladesh after this and Bangladesh will hit us with a lot of spinners. The wickets will probably spin a lot more than these spun in the last two Test matches. I felt personally the wickets were pretty good. A lot of people remark there are probably better surfaces than India has produced in the last couple of years. We can’t fault the pitches we just got play smart and better cricket.
Holder further added that they are trying to analyze the problems together and also trying to solve it.
He added, “(I’m) trying to understand the reasons why it’s (collapses) happening. It’s a case where we all need to put our heads together, The management, the selectors, to the players. The onus must be on the players and we must be responsible for our actions. We got to come together a little bit more and find ways and solutions to deal with the problems that we have at the moment.”
