New West Indies T20 International captain Shai Hope has urged his side to put the results of the recently concluded ODI series in the past and focus on the upcoming three T20Is against England, beginning at Chester-le-Street in Durham on Friday.
The West Indies will be entering the T20Is searching for their first win of the tour after being swept 3-0 in the ODIs.
Hope, in his first assignment since being named T20I skipper, wants his team to learn from their mistakes but, ultimately, put those results in the rear-view mirror.
“It’s a different squad now. We have to put that ODI series behind us. We’ll take the learnings from it, for sure, and then look ahead,” he said in a pre-match press conference on Thursday.
“We’ve got a new captain and some experienced players coming back into the T20 side so there’s a lot to look forward to.”
The Barbadian says a key to getting better results in the shorter format will be assessing conditions more quickly.
“I would say we need to adapt a bit quicker and assess conditions to play particular situations a bit better,” he said.
Star pacer Alzarri Joseph was singled out by Hope as an x-factor that will be crucial to the team’s success in this series and going forward. Joseph was in good form in the ODIs, picking up seven wickets in the three matches.
“We always expect a lot from him. He’s shown what he can do over the last couple years and he’s been on song pretty much throughout this particular series so far,” Hope said.
“He’s an x-factor type of bowler and someone we’re certainly banking on going forward. It’s great to see he’s been doing so well lately and, hopefully, he continues,” he added.
Batsman Jamie Smith was not originally in England’s T20I squad but was added after his blistering 64 off 28 balls in the third ODI.
“I won’t really put too many plans out there, but he’s shown that he’s capable of playing at this level. We’ve got to look at what he did in the last ODI, especially, and take some of the learnings that we got from him and then transfer that into the T20 setup,” Hope said of Smith.
“We’re going to have our in-depth chats before the game starts and find ways to formulate plans against all the batters, not just Jamie Smith. It’s important for us to know that England is one of those teams that’s always going to be coming at us and how we’re going to stop them is the biggest question,” he added.
