Photo Credit: Cricket West Indies
1st Betway Test Match
West Indies vs South Africa
Daren Sammy Cricket Ground, St Lucia
First ball: Thursday 10am (9am Jamaica)
Follow the weather: https://bit.ly/3xd9wng
West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite said his team is supremely focused and feeling confident as they enter the first Betway Test match against South Africa. The two-match series bowls off on Thursday at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground. The skipper spoke via Zoom on Wednesday following an intense training session at the venue and noted that all 13 members of the squad were fit and ready.
“I have a lot of effort during training and the guys have put in a lot of work. We are very excited about the series, it will be a challenging one, and you can see in their eyes that they are ready,” Brathwaite said.
West Indies are unbeaten in Test cricket this year. They won 2-0 away to Bangladesh in February and drew 0-0 when Sri Lanka toured in March and April. These results helped them to move up to sixth in the ICC Test match rankings surpassing South Africa who are in seventh spot.
“For us it’s about looking for a continuation of the good things we started in Bangladesh and what we did against Sri Lanka at home. As a team, we want to play well in all three departments. As a team once we keep the standards high and put in a total team effort,” Brathwaite said.
“I think this series is a very important one for us. South Africa is a very good Test team. We have shown a lot of fight and discipline in the past two series and we had the right attitude at key moments in the game. We need to maintain this approach in this series because it’s the key if you want to be successful in Test cricket.”
The Skipper added:
“… we have been doing some things really well and we still have areas we have to improve on. Once we do the small things right, that’s what I like to focus on, and I believe from there the results will take care of themselves.”
Cricket West Indies (CWI) governs cricket across the West Indies, a confederation of Caribbean countries. Originally established as the West Indies Cricket Board of Control in the 1920s, it became the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) in 1996 and was rebranded as Cricket West Indies in May 2017 as part of a restructuring effort.
