BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos – West In­dies fast bowler Ke­mar Roach is hap­py to be back in the swing of things as he pre­pares for the pro­posed tour of Eng­land start­ing next month.

The most ex­pe­ri­enced and suc­cess­ful West In­dies Test bowler in the last decade has his eyes on the mag­i­cal fig­ure of 200 Test wick­ets once the green light is giv­en for the tour to hap­pen. The teams will play three Test match­es as they com­pete for the Wis­den Tro­phy.

Roach present­ly sits on 193 wick­ets in 56 match­es since his dra­mat­ic de­but against Bangladesh back in 2009 in St. Vin­cent. His im­pres­sive fig­ures in­clude nine five-wick­et hauls and put him in ninth po­si­tion in the West In­dies all-time list. The oth­er bowlers in the top ten are: Walsh, Am­brose, Mar­shall, Gibbs, Gar­ner, Hold­ing, Sobers, Roberts and Hall – all in­ductees in the pres­ti­gious In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil Hall of Fame.

“My goal is 200 wick­ets when we go to Eng­land…that’s the per­son­al goal. The team goal is to win the se­ries…. To beat Eng­land in Eng­land would be some­thing spe­cial for us as play­ers and for West In­dies crick­et,” Roach said.

“It’s def­i­nite­ly doable…. We beat them last time they were here in the West In­dies last year and we have many of the same play­ers who were in that team last year.”

Roach, who cel­e­brates his 32nd birth­day next month, is the team’s lead­ing bowler and is present­ly in the top 20 in the ICC Test match rank­ings. His ul­ti­mate ca­reer goal is 300 Test wick­ets.

“I’m look­ing to get bet­ter and move high­er. I have my eyes fixed on 300 (wick­ets). I know that might seem some way off, but I’m feel­ing fit and ready and I be­lieve it achiev­able,” he said.

Roach joined sev­er­al Test team­mates as they re­turned to train­ing af­ter a two-month lay­off due to Gov­ern­ment en­forced lock­down over the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The group – which al­so in­clud­ed cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er, Kraigg Brath­waite, Shamarh Brooks, Ros­ton Chase, Shane Dowrich, Ray­mon Reifer, Shai Hope and Jomel War­ri­can – start­ed fit­ness drills and net ses­sions on Mon­day at Kens­ing­ton Oval, un­der the guid­ance of West In­dies as­sis­tant coach Rod­dy Es­t­wick.

“The Man of the Se­ries per­for­mance last year against Eng­land was the high point of my ca­reer and we won the se­ries as well, which was some­thing ex­tra spe­cial for the peo­ple of the West In­dies and those fans all around the world who sup­port us,” Roach said.

Dur­ing that three-Test rub­ber he took 18 wick­ets at 13.8 runs each as West In­dies won in Bar­ba­dos and An­tigua to lift the cov­et­ed tro­phy.

“I would like to em­u­late those kinds of per­for­mances. The ball was com­ing out and every­thing just flowed. We played a very good brand of crick­et.

“Go­ing to Eng­land will bring back some good mem­o­ries. I love play­ing in Eng­land, very good fa­cil­i­ties and won­der­ful at­mos­phere. Even though we won’t be play­ing in front the fans this time, it will still be quite good. I had a good se­ries last time…. It felt spe­cial to get five wick­ets at Lords and have my name on the ho­n­ours board,” Roach added.

If the Eng­land se­ries comes off, it will be the first in­ter­na­tion­al tour to take place in near­ly three months since the virus forced the ces­sa­tion of crick­et glob­al­ly.

A fi­nal de­ci­sion is like­ly to be made at a CWI Board meet­ing on Thurs­day.