DUBAI–Ris­ing Twen­ty20 star Evin Lewis says he is anx­ious to build on the en­cour­ag­ing start to his ca­reer, when he lines up against Pak­istan in the up­com­ing three-match T20 se­ries start­ing here next week­end.

The left-han­der has played just three T20Is since mak­ing his de­but last April but made a huge im­pres­sion when he blast­ed ex­act­ly 100 against In­dia in Fort Laud­erdale, Unit­ed States last month.Lewis said he was in­tent on con­tin­u­ing to be pos­i­tive and play­ing to his strengths.

"I am pret­ty ex­cit­ed. It's my first time in Dubai and I'm look­ing to grasp the op­por­tu­ni­ty and per­form well," the 24-year-old said.

He added: "I'm al­ways pos­i­tive, and that's the most im­por­tant thing. You have to know the ar­eas where you can score. For me, it's prob­a­bly back of a length balls and half vol­leys that are my strengths so I just back my­self every time they come to go over the top."

Lewis's brief in­ter­na­tion­al ca­reer has been a sto­ry of grasped op­por­tu­ni­ties. He made his de­but in the T20 World Cup as a late re­place­ment for the in­jured Lendl Sim­mons and then broke in­to the team for his sec­ond game in the re­cent two-match se­ries against In­dia, when su­per­star Chris Gayle pulled out with in­jury.

He stepped up to blast five fours and nine six­es in a 49-ball in­nings and help pro­pel West In­dies to an ex­cit­ing one-run vic­to­ry in the open­ing game.

Lewis put on a stroke-filled 126 for the first wick­et with John­son Charles who made 79, a part­ner­ship which laid the foun­da­tion for the Windies' vic­to­ry.

"It was very shock­ing to me to know that he (Gayle) wasn't play­ing but at the same time I said this could be my op­por­tu­ni­ty to put my­self on the world stage. I went in there and was pos­i­tive and it paid off for me so I was very hap­py about it," Lewis said of the in­nings against In­dia.

"It's pret­ty de­cent with me and Jono (Charles). You know Jono is a very at­tack­ing bats­man as is my­self so it's less pres­sure on me. When I see him scor­ing it's then eas­i­er for me to score al­so so I am thank­ful for that."

Lewis will be hop­ing to get his first taste of ac­tion to­day when West In­dies take on an Emi­rates Crick­et Board XI in a warm-up T20 at the ICC Crick­et Acad­e­my here.And with the open­ing T20 In­ter­na­tion­al sched­uled for Fri­day, Lewis said it was im­por­tant the Caribbean side made the most of the en­counter.

"We just have to go out there and be pos­i­tive," the Trinida­di­an said.

"It's a build-up for the game on [Fri­day] so we just have to go out there and play pos­i­tive crick­et, the crick­et we have been play­ing all year long so we just have to go out there and do our thing."

CMC