DUBAI–West In­dies coach Ot­tis Gib­son be­lieves the up­com­ing ICC Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy 2013 is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the West In­dies to claim its sec­ond ICC glob­al tro­phy in the space of nine months, and is call­ing on the Welsh pub­lic to sup­port the side when it plays South Africa on June 14 in Cardiff.

"I played for Glam­or­gan in the ear­ly stages of my crick­et ca­reer and peo­ple wel­comed me in­to the coun­ty. It was a re­al­ly good time and the peo­ple of Wales were nice and good to me. The peo­ple there are very pas­sion­ate about their team.

"I be­lieve if we can get there ear­ly and get the sup­port of the lo­cals that would be great for us," said Gib­son who played two Tests and 15 ODIs for the West In­dies be­tween 1995 and 1999.

"I had many high­lights from my time there; I got over 60 wick­ets and made 700 runs in my de­but sea­son, so that was a very good start to my coun­ty crick­et ca­reer in the UK. I had a very good time and great ex­pe­ri­ence.

"When I was at Glam­or­gan, we al­so had amaz­ing sup­port when we played around the coun­ty cir­cuit and at Cardiff Wales Sta­di­um (pre­vi­ous­ly known as Sophia Gar­dens), and I know that sup­port has con­tin­ued over the years. It's a won­der­ful place for sports and you al­ways feel the pas­sion and love for sports over there."

The cur­rent ICC World Twen­ty20 cham­pi­ons and ICC Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy win­ners in 2004, kick-off their cam­paign on June 7 at The Oval against Pak­istan, and Gib­son is con­fi­dent that this tour­na­ment is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for his side to car­ry on its win­ning mo­men­tum.

"It is a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for us. We have quite a few play­ers who have played in Eng­land and Wales be­fore.

"The hard­est thing will be to get used to the con­di­tions ear­ly. But we have quite an ex­pe­ri­enced one-day out­fit at the mo­ment, so once we get there and get ac­cli­ma­tised ear­ly we will be OK.

"We be­lieve we can win these big tour­na­ments, hav­ing re­cent­ly done it in Sri Lan­ka. So, this is some­thing that we are re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to," com­ment­ed the 44-year-old from Bar­ba­dos.

"In a for­mat like this, with the top eight teams in the world, it is a bit dif­fi­cult to choose one. I think the weath­er is go­ing to play a big part in the tour­na­ment, so I be­lieve Eng­land could be list­ed as favourites sim­ply be­cause of the weath­er con­di­tions and they have been in good form in this for­mat re­cent­ly. Get­ting ac­cli­ma­tised to the con­di­tions ear­ly will be a huge fac­tor," ad­mit­ted the for­mer Eng­land bowl­ing coach.

The for­mer West In­dies bowler ad­mit­ted that his team need­ed to im­prove on its per­for­mances in the one-day for­mat, say­ing: "We haven't done all that well in the 50-over for­mat re­cent­ly and that is some­thing we are try­ing to ad­dress. We had some suc­cess against Zim­bab­we re­cent­ly at home and that is cer­tain­ly some­thing that we can build on as we head to Eng­land.

"We un­der­stand what it will take for us to do well in Eng­land and we recog­nise we will have to be able to bat out the 50 overs, ab­sorb the pres­sure and be able to catch up at the back end of our in­nings. We will need a lot of good ef­forts from the top or­der to get us in good po­si­tions and we be­lieve we have the bowl­ing at­tack to do very well in the Eng­lish con­di­tions."

Al­though coy to ad­mit who fans should look out for dur­ing the tour­na­ment, Gib­son said that the youth of the West In­dies side were the ones to take it for­ward.

"The team has not been se­lect­ed as yet so it's dif­fi­cult to pick out peo­ple and name them.

"How­ev­er, we have some ex­cel­lent play­ers who can take West In­dies crick­et for­ward. Age-wise and crick­et-wise peo­ple may say that Ke­mar Roach is not one of the 'young­sters' but he is one of our play­ers who is learn­ing all the time and we ex­pect a lot from him.

"We al­so have Dar­ren Bra­vo who is start­ing to ful­fil his promise and we al­so have young John­son Charles who got two cen­turies in about ten ODIs, and these are play­ers who are learn­ing from the more ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers in the group."

The ICC Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy, fea­tur­ing Aus­tralia, Eng­land, In­dia, New Zealand, Pak­istan, South Africa, Sri Lan­ka and West In­dies, will be played across three world-class venues–Cardiff Wales Sta­di­um, Edg­bas­ton and The Oval–over 18 days in this ac­tion-packed event from June 6-23.

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