Brathwaite will not change aggressive instincts

Barnaby Read 00:19 24/09/2016
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  • A number of poor shots cost the West Indies.

    In their Dubai hotel on Friday night the West Indies team will be doing a lot of retrospective thinking.

    Following a humbling defeat at the hands of Pakistan in the first of three T20Is, captain Carlos Brathwaite and his men have little time to dwell on their initial insufficiencies on this tour.

    And in his post-match press conference, Brathwaite was keen to press home the fact that his team were out gunned and that while their introspection will begin immediately, they will try to put this defeat to the back of their minds and respond with immediate victory in Saturday’s second T20I.

    “It’s a professional sport and your retrospection is not always on a team level. It will be, I must say, but the most important thing is the individuals tonight go back to the rooms, analyse their own performance, their dismissals, the bowling spells and come up with a plan tomorrow to rectify what went wrong tonight,” said Brathwaite.

    “It can be a positive [not having time to dwell on defeat], there’s not much time to keep your head down and not think too much about this loss.

    “The fans of West Indies deserve a better performance than we put up tonight.”

    Brathwaite’s side were decimated by the brilliance of Imad Wasim who took 5-14 as West Indies limped first to 22-5 before being bowled out for 115.

    Imad enjoyed a successful stint in the Caribbean Premier League this year, taking 11 wickets at 17.63 as his Jamaica Tallawahs team went on to win the title.

    And Brathwaite, full of praise for Imad’s heroics, believed the Pakistan spinner greatly benefited from his spell in the West Indies.

    “I think Imad had a head start on us playing CPL with Jamaica Tallawahs so he knew our batsmen,” added Brathwaite. “We knew him as well, we planned for him and on the day his execution was better than ours. I don’t want to take anything from his spell, it was fantastic.”

    Only Dwayne Bravo (53) and Jerome Taylor (21) passed double figures for the West Indies as their batsmen were undone by Imad and contrived to their own downfall with a number of poor shots.

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    Brathwaite, however, insists he will not ask his batters to tone down their aggression.

    “I don’t think we assessed the conditions quickly enough and the majority of shots didn’t show situation awareness,” he said.

    “You don’t want only to say we didn’t bat well, credit must go to Imad Wasim who bowled fantastically and if you get 5-14 in an international game you must be doing something right and to get it in a T20 international is even better.

    “These things happen and we are an aggressive team and I wouldn’t tell any of the guys in the room to lose their aggression it’s about being more situation aware going into tomorrow’s game.”

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