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Nicholas Pooran: “Match against Bangladesh is best chance to get first points”

Time icon October 28, 2021 | Last Updated: May 17, 2024 at 5:38 AM

After West Indies were bowled out on 55 in their opener against England in Dubai, their head coach Phil Simmons said that they just couldn’t wait for the next game to be back on track. West Indies similarly fell in a heap against South Africa despite Evin Lewis’ quickfire half-century, and now they are desperate to score their first points.

They will have to do so without Obed McCoy who has been ruled out of the rest of the tournament with injury.

Nicholas Pooran, the West Indies vice-captain, believes that Friday could be their best opportunity to get their first points.

“Yeah, I think Bangladesh after losing two games – they are in the same situation as us as well,” Pooran said. “So, I think it’s going to be a good challenge for us tomorrow. We need to get that victory and playing in Sharjah as well… We know Bangladesh have a lot of spinners as well. It’s definitely going to be a challenge for us as well and it’s how bad we actually want it.”

Pooran reflects on the team’s batting collapses

Reflecting on the two batting collapses, Pooran accepted that West Indies’ batters were “not good enough” in Dubai, but backed them to perform better in Sharjah.

“The mood in the camp is still good,” Pooran said. “The guys are gelling really good; I think we’re really hurt at losing those two games and we have only ourselves to blame. But the mood is still good. We know what we have to do and everyone is up for the challenge.

“Jason Holder coming into the team…obviously, he’s a quality player as well. We’re happy to have him and we wish him all the best. With the batting order and the batsmen, we just didn’t rise to the occasion to be honest. If you can accept that you weren’t good in the first two games… I think as batsmen and as a team we’ve already accepted that we didn’t come to the party and we’re looking forward to moving forward and hopefully we can do much better.”

I will play as per the team’s needs – Pooran

“For me it’s just about doing what the team wants me to do, to be honest,” he said. “At the moment, the tournament is just for us to put our hands up and perform whatever role the team requires from me.

“It doesn’t really matter to be honest. We back our batsmen 100%. Doesn’t matter if it’s a right-hand or left-hand batsman. We back them to do the job for us – whoever is playing in that XI tomorrow, they’ll have specific roles.

We have a wonderful captain and he knows what he’s doing as well. So whatever he says goes and we back him to make some really good decisions for us tomorrow to be successful.”

“BPL experience will help me in the upcoming match”

Talking about having played in the BPL, Pooran said, ”I’ve spent a bit of time in Bangladesh as well, not only me but a lot of the other guys as well. We have good friendships; we make good friendships with the guys. We get to understand them and learn off them as well, especially in different conditions.

So going into the game, [we] actually know what these guys do – being a bit familiar with it and I think that helps us a lot as batsmen and as bowlers as well.”