Former West Indies fast bowler Tony Gray believes that the regional team will need to reshuffle its batting line-up in order to be competitive in the remaining four matches of the ODI series against India.
The West Indies were beaten by four wickets with 31 balls to spare at the Queen's Park Oval yesterday after being limited to 214 for nine in their 50 overs batting first. From a position of 59 for three in the 19th over, they rebounded to 177 for four in the 43rd thanks to half centuries by Ramnaresh Sarwan (56) and Marlon Samuels (55), but managed just 37 runs in the remaining 7.2 overs for the loss of five wickets.
Gray said that the selectors needed to recall the team's two most experienced batsmen, Chris Gayle and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, as soon as possible. "(The management) is making fundamental mistakes and it's really a puzzling. You don't build a team with just young players alone," he said. "There's a misconception that Chanderpaul can't play 50-over cricket and I don't agree with it at all. He should be opening the batting since we need stability at the top of the order while the other batsmen are playing their shots around him."
He also called for the inclusion of Kieron Pollard, who was left out of the final XI yesterday. "He's an intimidator who can change a game and has experience playing on all types of surfaces around the world. Although Anthony Martin [10-0-39-2] bowled well, he is the guy to leave out." Gray felt that the bowlers had shown a lack of potency by allowing India to reach the target, despite having been 104 for four in the 26th over. "We don't have a lot of wicket-takers to win games for us when we get into these positions. We tend to let them off the hook and drop catches... India are a lot more stable than Pakistan and they know how to fight themselves out of situations."
