Photo Credit: Cricket West Indies
West Indies leg-spinner Hayden Walsh Jr said he was confident he will bounce back and return to top form on the tour of New Zealand. Walsh is currently part of the T20 International squad preparing for a three-match series against the Black Caps later this month. He managed seven wickets in 10 matches in this year’s Caribbean Premier League, in comparison to the 22 wickets he grabbed last year for champions Barbados Tridents that earned him selection for West Indies on the tour of India a year ago.
Walsh said getting acclimatized to the conditions in New Zealand was very important right now for him to enjoy the kind of success he craves in trying to become the No.1 spinner in the T20 format in the world. He also found a unique way to break the boredom during quarantine when he started painting the scenery around the team’s base. This was very well received by fans on social media, who were amazed by his skills on the canvas.
“The tour has been going well so far. I have been doing a lot of acclimatisation. It’s not quite the tropics and I have been trying to find the right balance, where I can get my fingers warm, and how much spin do I need, and at what pace do I need to bowl on the pitches. It has been a very good fact-finding preparation so far,” Walsh said
“I have not been getting a lot of spin off the pitches, but once I make the adjustments and go forward with my confidence and really put spin on the ball, I am sure I will pick up wickets here and there for the team.”
Walsh has played eight of 16 Twenty20 Internationals for the West Indies, since making his debut for the against Afghanistan last November in Lucknow, India. He said his long-term goal was to prove himself the leading spin bowler in the format in the Caribbean and eventually he hoped to become the No.1 bowler in the World.
“I am definitely seeing myself as the premier leg-spinner in the Caribbean because I turn the ball and I have a googly, a slider and I think it is my variations that put me a step ahead of the rest,” he said. “I am not afraid to use my variations. If I get hit, I get hit. But I am not afraid to use my armoury. I see myself being rising to top of the world rankings as a spinner. I am working on being that X factor in the team, that is No.1 in all of my training.
Name of Author: Cricket West Indies
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.
