Let me be­gin my dis­course by say­ing a re­sound­ing con­grat­u­la­tions to Nicholas Pooran and his fel­low West In­dies play­ers for their Twen­ty20 (T20) In­ter­na­tion­al se­ries win over the vis­it­ing Aus­tralians.

But, de­spite flash­es of bril­liance from some West In­di­ans, I have ob­served some trou­bling signs dur­ing the five-match se­ries. The Aussies came to these shores with a de­plet­ed squad, mi­nus some of their reg­u­lar top T20 play­ers, and I am sure head coach Justin Langer and his tech­ni­cal staff will use the op­por­tu­ni­ty to as­sess the strength and weak­ness­es of their Caribbean coun­ter­parts.

The West In­dies must not be lured in­to a false sense of com­pla­cen­cy be­liev­ing pow­er-hit­ting is the on­ly match-win­ning as­pect of their game. The Caribbean team has shown the likes of Evin Lewis, Chris Gayle, Nicholas Pooran, Dwayne "DJ" Bra­vo and An­dre Rus­sell can be very de­struc­tive and can take apart any bowl­ing at­tack on any giv­en day.

Pow­er-hit­ting must be tem­pered with reg­u­lar crick­et shots with some in­no­va­tions at times, quick sin­gles, and sen­si­ble read­ing of the game at every stage of the en­counter.

One glar­ing ex­am­ple where the West In­dies dropped the ball or should I say Rus­sell was in the fourth T20 fix­ture against Aus­tralia where the Caribbean team was chas­ing 190 for vic­to­ry, need­ing 11 in the fi­nal over with Rus­sell and Akiel Ho­sein at the wick­et.

Rus­sell, on strike, turned down sin­gles in the sec­ond and third de­liv­er­ies hit­ting a six on the fi­nal ball as his team fell short by five runs. Had the pow­er­ful­ly-built Rus­sell giv­en Ho­sein the strike on the third ball, he (Rus­sell) would have faced the fourth, fifth and sixth with nine runs need­ed. What a missed op­por­tu­ni­ty for the men in ma­roon to take a 4-nil lead in the five-match se­ries.

An­oth­er im­por­tant as­pect, West In­dies head coach Phil Sim­mons must pay par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion to, is how his bats­men ne­go­ti­ate spin bowl­ing as South Africa's Tabraiz Sham­si ex­posed this weak­ness as the Pro­teas came from one game down to emerge win­ners of that T20 se­ries by three match­es to two.

Let us not be fooled that pow­er-hit­ting will see us through. Our play­ers must be able to adapt to var­i­ous sit­u­a­tions dur­ing a game at any giv­en time. I wish Kieron Pol­lard and his men all suc­cess as they de­fend their ICC World T20 ti­tle come Oc­to­ber in Oman and the UAE (Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates).

Let us be singing and danc­ing again!

Jour­nal­ist: Astil Renn

Email: astil­renn60@gmail.com

Con­tact: (868) 686-2010