CAN­BER­RA – West In­dies vice-cap­tain Anisa Mo­hammed has called for her bat­ters to give more sup­port to the bowlers in Wednesday’s ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Group B clash with Pak­istan, af­ter a tight tour­na­ment open­er against min­nows Thai­land. While the ex­pe­ri­enced Stafanie Tay­lor-led squad even­tu­al­ly came out on top in their en­counter with the World Cup debu­tants, their bat­ting left much to be de­sired as they ini­tial­ly strug­gled while chas­ing down 79 for vic­to­ry.

Even af­ter the bowlers did a good job of re­strict­ing Thai­land to 78 in their 20 overs, they lost three ear­ly wick­ets to slip to 27 in the sev­enth over. They re­cov­ered cour­tesy of an un­bro­ken 53-run third wick­et stand be­tween their skip­per and She­maine Camp­belle to reach their tar­get in 16.4 overs.

Mo­hammed on Tues­day chal­lenged her side, which boasts more T20I caps in their squad than any oth­er na­tion at the World Cup, to do bet­ter with the bat and put a big score on the board in their en­counter here oto­day at the Manu­ka Oval.

“I think our bat­ting just needs to im­prove a bit,” the world-class spin­ner said.

“Our field­ing and our bowl­ing against Thai­land was spot on— the seam­ers set the tone and as spin­ners, we en­joyed the bounce we got from the pitch. As a group we’ve had to fill in for Shak­era [Sel­man] and we did that, she’s a big bowler and they are big shoes to fill.”

The Windies bat­ting line-up has dis­ap­point­ed in the past. The Caribbean women have been dis­missed in dou­ble fig­ures five times since the last T20 World Cup and they were bowled out for 71 by Aus­tralia in their 2018 se­mi-fi­nal on home soil.

Mo­hammed warned that their next op­po­nent in this year’s tour­na­ment should not be tak­en light­ly.

The two sides faced each oth­er in two warm-up match­es in the weeks lead­ing up to the World Cup and in an en­ter­tain­ing three-match se­ries 12 months ago.

“Pak­istan have some good play­ers and they’re a very dif­fer­ent team from when we played them in pre­vi­ous se­ries,” Mo­hammed said.

“I think they’re a pret­ty good team. Their bowl­ing is re­al­ly their strength, so hope­ful­ly our bat­ters can counter that and put a to­tal on the board for us to bowl at. All teams in this com­pe­ti­tion are strong, every­one’s here to win and to qual­i­fy. We’re tak­ing every game very se­ri­ous­ly.”

Pak­istan mean­while, plan to make the Caribbean side’s pro­cliv­i­ty for hit­ting big work in their favour.

All-rounder Ni­da Dar said af­ter watch­ing the Windies play Thai­land in their open­er last and see­ing them strug­gle to ro­tate strike against the new­com­ers, she be­lieves her side can cap­i­talise on the six-hit­ting brava­do of the Windies Women.

“West In­dies want to show their skills, be­cause they are strong and hit a bound­ary from every ball,” said Ni­da.

“They were very dis­turbed by the pace Thai­land bowled to them. Slow­er balls and vari­a­tions can be very help­ful for us against them as they try to hit hard every time. Maybe in our match they’ll adapt to con­di­tions and try to ro­tate the strike. Asian teams are giv­ing tough times to every­one at the World Cup and our spin­ners will try to do the same.”

The Bis­mah Ma­roof-led squad have an av­er­age age of 25 and few­er com­bined caps than all the T20 World Cup teams apart from Sri Lan­ka and Thai­land.

But Ni­da, whose Big Bash League ex­pe­ri­ence with Syd­ney Thun­der will be cru­cial for her side, is con­fi­dent she and her team­mates have what it takes.

“Our youth is the best thing about our team. West In­dies won’t know all of our play­ers and some of them will be a sur­prise pack­age,” said the 33-year-old.

“I’m in a team of very tal­ent­ed play­ers with a mix of se­nior and ju­nior play­ers. I hope they’re look­ing for­ward to play­ing at the World Cup. We just want to show our skills.”

The en­counter with West In­dies will be Pak­istan’s first match of the tour­na­ment. First ball is 4 am East­ern Caribbean time. (CMC)