Former West Indies opener Bryan Davis says that this country is not preparing well for matches and this is why they fell down at the final hurdle in the recently concluded Nagico Super50 Regional tournament in Trinidad.
T&T, led by Dwayne Bravo, lost the finals by 17 runs to Barbados last Saturday at the Queen's Park Oval.
Davis said: "My main grouse with this team is in their preparation. It has never been good enough in my opinion and I can't be adamant enough about that.
"If you look at the Winter Olympics currently being played and you listen to the stories of the ice skaters and the skiers, you would realise just how hard these guys train. We are not practicing enough and that is a major problem.
"In November and December leading up to this tournament, our guys were mostly doing physicals. While you need to be physically fit to play the game, you also need to focus on your batting, bowling and fielding. Sometimes I look on and see these guys batting for 15 minutes. This is not ideal, you need to practice plenty batting, plenty bowling and plenty fielding, if you want success.
"Imagine one of the trial matches was put off because a player was getting married. And when another was getting married a little later on, the men only trained in the morning, so they could attend the wedding after."
Davis who is in charge of cricket operations at the country's most prestigious cricket club, Queen's Park added: "When I played for the West Indies, I remember flying into Jamaica one morning and going to the cricket ground to train at 9.30 am. We trained until 12.30 pm and after lunch when one thought it was over, we had to go back and train until 5.30 pm. We were playing against Australia and this is the kind of work we put in and for the first time we defeated Australia in a series.
"Rohan Kanhai once told me that he would go down to Georgetown and bat for two hours at the cricket ground. He would have all kind of men bowl to him. Some could not bowl but he allowed them to pelt at him from 17 yards. This is the kind of work ethic that we don't have these days."
Davis ended by saying: "If you looked closely at the Nagico series, you would have noticed that they were falling down in this same aspect, with men not being able to bat for long periods and the fielding not up to par."
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