(AFP Photo)
As they approach their T20 World Cup opener against Papua New Guinea, West Indies captain Rovman Powell is delighted to have three skilled spinners in the squad and aims to entertain the home fans with “good cricket.”
The co-hosts have included three spinners – Gudakesh Motie, Akeal Hosein, and Roston Chase – in their lineup for the home tournament, taking into account the typically slow and low pitches in the Caribbean.
“I think I am very, very pleased at this moment to see that we have three quality spinners. Not often, our West Indies team has been selected with three quality spinners. So that is something that I’m very, very excited about,” ICC quoted Powell as saying.
“Times may come when they may not play. But to have them at our disposal is very, very important for us,” he added.
West Indies and the reigning champions, England, are the only teams in the tournament to have won the trophy twice. Powell acknowledged the difficulties of playing on home soil but expressed confidence that their style of cricket would delight the home fans.
“I think it’s a mixture of both (challenge and expectation),” Powell said. “It’s definitely a challenge. When you’re playing in front of your home crowd, it can be good and it can be bad.
“But we’re trying to look on the positive side of things and see that the fans will come out just anticipating, hoping that we’ll play good cricket to entertain them,” he added.
Discussing their recent rise to fourth place in the ICC Men’s T20I Rankings, Powell attributed this success to their hard work over the past year. During this period, they secured victories against cricket giants India, Australia, and England, and most recently achieved a 3-0 whitewash against South Africa at home.
“And I think over the duration of the last 12 months or so, we have played some very good cricket right across the world. And such, that has improved our T20 rankings to being fourth in the world.
It’s a team that has confidence. It’s a team that understands and knows how to play T20 cricket. So hopefully, during the duration of this World Cup, we can show that,” Powell said.
On the other hand, PNG captain Assad Valla expressed his excitement about facing full member nations, which he referred to as “one of the powers in cricket.”
Valla noted that his team participated in the 2021 T20 World Cup as well, but he believes PNG has a more settled squad this time around.
“I think there’s more experience in the team. The preparation has been different to the last one we went to, as it was held during the COVID. So, we didn’t play any international cricket over 12 to 18 months and just going to the World Cup. But there’s no excuses as the other teams went through the same phase as well.
“So, for us I think the experience we gained from that [tournament], having a different coaching staff. and I think having a more settled team than the one we had last time, so I’m really happy [with] the squad we have assembled for this tournament,” Valla said.
West Indies and PNG are both in Group C, along with New Zealand, Afghanistan, and Uganda.
