ST JOHN’S, Antigua – West Indies head coach Phil Simmons has heralded the success of the two-week skills camp here and says the challenge before players now will be to execute on upcoming assignments.
Sixteen players, most of whom have already represented West Indies in the Test or white-ball formats, have spent the last two weeks involved in a skills camp, hosted by Cricket West Indies at Coolidge Cricket Ground.
Simmons, who has overseen the camp along with his coaching staff, said he had observed definite improvements in players but stressed it was important they took the next step.
“It has been successful from the point of view that the players worked hard on the different skills that we were trying to implement, and I think a lot of them would’ve shown improvement through the camp so it’s been successful in [that regard],” Simmons said.
“They’ve been good. Their attitudes have been good. They’ve done the work we’ve asked them to do which included early training at 6 o’clock – nearly every morning we were here.
“So their attitude has been good and I think they’ve taken it in their stride and that’s why there’s so much improvement.”
“All of them will go back to their franchises now and hopefully they’ll be playing in the four-day tournament that’s coming up or be selected to go on the trip to Netherlands or Pakistan.
“So it’s all for them to go back home now and work on whichever is their next challenge.”
Struggling Test batsmen like Shai Hope, Shamarh Brooks, Darren Bravo and Roston Chase were all involved in the camp which is set to wind up Wednesday.
They were accompanied by the uncapped likes of all-rounder Nyeem Young and fast bowler Nial Smith, along with batsman Kjorn Ottley and speedster Anderson Phillip both of who made their One-Day International debuts last year.
Simmons said more skills camps were necessary outside of the competition environment of a series, where time could be afforded to work closely with players.
“We know who’s there and we know what we have to keep working on with them so it was good to have them in an environment where we could work, without preparing for a match or preparing for a series, and just work on different skills,” he explained.
“So it was good to see them in this sort of environment.”
He continued: “We would like to have more [camps], we’ve been trying to have [one] for the longest while but the fixtures are so congested that to find a ten days somewhere to do something like this is difficult.
“But once we have a ten days somewhere we’re going to try to do more like these.”
West Indies tour the Netherlands for a three-match ODI series from March 31 to June 3 before travelling to Rawalpindi for three more ODIs against Pakistan from June 8-12.
The last three rounds of the West Indies first class championship will be contested from May 18 to June 14. (CMC)
