ICC World Twenty20, 2007-08

Sarwan castigates team for lack of consistency

Cricinfo staff

September 14, 2007

Ramnaresh Sarwan felt the West Indian bowling and fielding wasn't up to the mark © AFP

West Indies captain Ramnaresh Sarwan called on his team to be more consistent after they crashed out of the ICC World Twenty20 in the first round.

"One of the things I've stressed on since I became captain is consistency and that is something we need to focus on," Sarwan said. "It is a matter of us going back and working hard. I know we've been saying this for the longest while about our fielding and bowling and sometimes our batting."

Sarwan was critical of his team's fielding and bowling in the tournament. "I don't think we executed our plans very well, we didn't bowl well and you saw how we fielded," he said. "We bowled wides today [Thursday] again and dropped a vital catch. Nevertheless it's important that we work on our game because we have a tour coming up to South Africa."

Sarwan said his side lost against Bangladesh because of a poor start and that the toss wasn't a crucial factor in the match. "I don't want to blame anything on the toss. I think we should have played better in the first six overs [of our innings] although Chris [Gayle] got out.

"We didn't set a momentum there in the first six overs and that set us back and I thought they [Bangladesh] bowled really well. They utilised the surface really well. When I went in the ball was still gripping from the left arm spinner but apart from that the opening batsmen said there wasn't much movement."

Sarwan had words of praise for Dwayne Smith and Marlon Samuels, whose cameos lent respectability to the West Indian score. "Both Dwayne and Marlon played well in the end but it was asking a bit too much of them at the end. We lost out on a few runs at the start of the innings and in the middle overs as well."

West Indies' next international assignment is a full tour of South Africa which starts in December.

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