DUBAI – West In­dies vice-cap­tain Nicholas Pooran brushed off con­cerns about his patchy form and re­mained con­fi­dent of play­ing a ma­jor role in the team’s suc­cess dur­ing the ICC Men’s Twen­ty20 World Cup, which opens on Sun­day in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) and Oman.

The 26-year-old left-han­der made on­ly 85 runs at an av­er­age of 7.72 play­ing for the Pun­jab Kings in the In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL) this sea­son.

He made 32 off 22 in his first in­nings when the IPL re­sumed last month in the UAE and could on­ly muster 25 in his next four in­nings.

“The IPL is gone,” he said dur­ing a vir­tu­al news con­fer­ence on Wednes­day. “It’s done for me. I just have to re­fo­cus and go again.

“I know per­son­al­ly that I’ve let my­self down in terms of not stick­ing with my process long enough. I felt like I rushed the re­sults a lot and I paid the price. You could see that in my scores.

“It’s just for me to re­fo­cus now, hit the nets, work hard, re­fo­cus, and plan again – sim­ple as that.”

Pooran’s dip in form led to him be­ing dropped from Pun­jab’s fi­nal IPL match against Chen­nai Su­per Kings last Thurs­day.

But he said his re­cent form for West In­dies and dur­ing the Caribbean Pre­mier League, where he scored 263 runs in 10 in­nings at an av­er­age of 32.88 at a strike rate of 163.35 for Guyana Ama­zon War­riors, gave him con­fi­dence that he could turn things around.

“I’m not con­cerned at all,” he said. “My crick­et is based on con­fi­dence and my in­tent. I left the first half of the (IPL) sea­son scor­ing what, 20 runs in five, six, sev­en games [28 runs in six in­nings].

“I came and did de­cent in the last three se­ries for West In­dies and in the CPL. It’s about my process, con­tin­u­ing to be­lieve in my process, hav­ing faith in my process, and my con­fi­dence is very high. I have no doubts in my mind that I can ex­e­cute my game plan and do good for the team.”

Pooran added: “It’s just games. A lot of crick­eters and a lot of sports­men have bad times but that’s fine. All crick­eters do have that patch and come out of it. I wouldn’t say it’s a patch for me.

“I came to the sec­ond half of IPL bat­ting re­al­ly good for West In­dies and Guyana in CPL. To me, it’s not form. When you think about it, I haven’t re­al­ly faced many balls in all hon­esty. It’s just for me to give my­self that chance.”

Pooran, like West In­dies cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard, was re­cov­er­ing from an in­jury when West In­dies won the sec­ond of their two T20 World Cups five years ago in In­dia un­der Daren Sam­my.

He was in­volved in a car crash that left him with ca­reer-threat­en­ing in­juries, and he la­belled his re­cov­ery and place in the Windies team now as “a big achieve­ment”.

“I re­mem­ber in the last World Cup, I was now re­cov­er­ing from my in­jury,” he said. “I was al­ways think­ing about T20 World Cup – I want­ed to be part of a T20 World Cup.

“Pro­cess­ing it now, it’s a big achieve­ment for me, be­ing vice-cap­tain. It was nev­er one of my goals to be a West In­dies cap­tain or vice-cap­tain, but it’s my job, and I’m hap­py I can con­tribute in any way, sup­port­ing Pol­ly (Kieron Pol­lard) and the coach. It’s a proud mo­ment for me and my fam­i­ly.”

About West In­dies chances and the need for them to change their swash­buck­ling style of bat­ting in this for­mat of the game, Pooran said they were aware of what was re­quired, but he did not ex­pect them to change their ap­proach much.

“For the last cou­ple of months, in the three se­ries in the Caribbean [against South Africa, Aus­tralia and Pak­istan], every­thing was about ‘sin­gles, sin­gles, sin­gles,” Pooran said. “We spoke about it and chat­ted about it. We have play­ers that play cer­tain roles, but as a bat­ting group, we want to get bet­ter, we want to im­prove.

“Yes, sin­gles are a part of the game, but our fo­cus is not too much on sin­gles. We won two World Cups with the same prob­lem, to be hon­est, not get­ting sin­gles, but yet still we won two World Cups. I don’t think the em­pha­sis is on get­ting sin­gles. It’s more about in­tent – in­tent and play­ing smart crick­et, that’s it.”

He said: “There are times that we know we’ll have to put egos aside and grind deep for the team. If that’s bat­ting a dot ball or try­ing to get a sin­gle, we’ll do that.

“We have net ses­sions and match sce­nar­ios when we try to play to our strengths, but al­so play to the con­di­tions, which is find­ing how to get a sin­gle or work­ing out how to get a sin­gle. We are work­ing. We’re not the best at get­ting sin­gles, but it’s a work in process and we be­lieve in our process and our team.”

West In­dies open the T20 World Cup against Eng­land on Oc­to­ber 23 in Dubai in a re­match of 2016 fi­nal.

They have been drawn in Group 1 and will al­so play group match­es against re­cent op­po­nents South Africa and Aus­tralia, as well as two teams that ad­vance from qual­i­fy­ing match­es in the first week of the tour­na­ment.

(CMC)