Butcher advises positive mindset to beat Zimbabwe

By Morissa Lindsay

West Indies senior men’s team need to dust themselves off from their shocking 42-runs defeat by Scotland and come stronger against Zimbabwe in their second qualifier of the 2022 International Cricket Council Men’s T20 World Cup being played in Australia.

That is the advice of former Barbados and England cricketer Roland Butcher who said it was disappointing to see the way in which Nicholas Pooran and his men lost to Scotland. However, Butcher has called for the regional side to stick together and put up a much better showing against Zimbabwe tomorrow and Ireland on Friday.

“Obviously the game against Zimbabwe is a must win. The West Indies would have wanted to get off to a better start. The first game of a tournament like this when you are trying to qualify and don’t have many games to play, it makes things difficult when you go behind particularly against a team that you would expect to beat.

“There is a lot of disappointment there in losing that game but in saying that what we should do now is galvanize the boys to realize that we’ve got two more shots at it. There is no point in feeling sorry for yourself, we now have to pull out our best performances in the next two games in order to have a chance of qualifying,” Butcher told Barbados TODAY.

He added: “Zimbabwe also is the strong team in this group. West Indies’ job is going to be very difficult now, losing that game makes it extremely difficult. But really the guys have to band together now and say listen, we have to pull it together because if we lose against Zimbabwe you are pretty much in trouble because Zimbabwe have won their first game already.”

Zimbabwe are the toughest opponents the Caribbean side will face in the qualifiers and Butcher explained that West Indies coached by Phil Simmons need to recognize that there are no second chances.

“There are no second chances, you are playing for your life now and I really would like to see the guys say to themselves: ‘we are in a corner and there is really only one way out of this and we have to fight tooth and nail to get out of here’. I would like to see that sort of attitude going into the next game where everything is on the line,” Butcher stated.

Butcher is of the view that West Indies panicked against Scotland hence the reason they were bowled out for 118 runs off 18.3 overs in response to 160 for five scored by the Scottish batsmen off their allotted 20 overs.

“The guys may have panicked from the number of runs Scotland scored. Going into the game you wouldn’t have wanted or even thought that Scotland would get as many runs as they did. They got 140, that is a great score for them, so really once they got past that, I think it really created pressure and a bit of panic and once you panic you will find a way to get out and that is exactly what we did. We panicked by the total that they got and lost our focus and got out quite easily.

“Batting-wise, everybody should know by now what is on the line, nobody really should have to tell the players the situation they are in or what they need to do. You know what you need to do, you have to win the game to stay in. I would certainly hope that the players would be thinking that for the last six months we’ve sacrificed, playing, training for this moment and we are not just going to give it up with a whimper. No, no you got to go in there tomorrow with ‘I am going to die before I leave this arena’.

“It has to be that sort of performance, it can’t be a frightened performance, it has to be one of the only ways I am going to lose this game is if I get knocked out. That has to be the attitude, it cannot be anything else. And the attitude has to be that the team would have to be better than us to beat us. That is the only way we can lose this is if they are better than us on the day. But if you go feeling sorry for yourself and being negative, you will lose the game for sure if you go in with that mindset,” Butcher said.

He added: “Your mindset has to be nothing to lose and play without pressure. If they start thinking about the situation they are in, that in itself will create pressure and once you create pressure for yourself, you cannot be free and you would not play naturally because hesitancy will come in and you will make mistakes and you will get beat. It has to be ‘Zimbabwe, you have to play fantastic cricket to beat us’. That has to be the attitude. Anything short of that I think we will struggle.” morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb