AHMED­ABAD – With the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed Test se­ries against In­dia on the hori­zon, West In­dies vice-cap­tain Jomel War­ri­can has ex­pressed a qui­et con­fi­dence in his team’s prepa­ra­tions, em­pha­sis­ing a fo­cus on the present mo­ment and the hard work be­ing put in on the train­ing grounds in Ahmed­abad, In­dia.

The Caribbean squad has been ac­cli­ma­tis­ing for the past cou­ple of days, and War­ri­can, a left-arm spin­ner who could play a piv­otal role in the sub­con­ti­nen­tal con­di­tions, be­lieves the in­ten­sive camp has been ben­e­fi­cial.

“It’s giv­en us a lot of con­fi­dence, me as a left-arm spin­ner,” War­ri­can stat­ed.

While he ac­knowl­edged the past suc­cess of left-arm spin­ners against the In­di­an bat­ting line-up, he was quick to dis­miss any no­tion of re­ly­ing on his­to­ry.

“It’s im­pres­sive that left-arm spin­ners have done well against In­dia, but at the same time, you can’t live too much in the past. You have to be in the present and just fo­cus on the job at hand.”

The team’s prepa­ra­tion has been thor­ough, fea­tur­ing two de­mand­ing all-day ses­sions de­signed to sim­u­late the rigours of a Test match. Ac­cord­ing to War­ri­can, every de­part­ment is be­ing fine-tuned.

“The bats­men have been do­ing a lot of drills, whether it be sweep­ing, play­ing off the back foot, for our de­fen­sive or lofty shot, just back­ing the game plan,” he ex­plained.

The bowlers, too, are leav­ing no stone un­turned. “The spin­ners or the pac­ers, or should I say the bowlers, have been hit­ting their lengths on tar­get very con­sis­tent­ly, do­ing a lot of spot bowl­ing as well, and then tak­ing that in­to bowl­ing against the bats­men.”

Un­der­pin­ning the in­tense phys­i­cal work is a clear men­tal phi­los­o­phy in­stilled by the coach­ing staff. The mes­sage is to play with free­dom and en­joy­ment.

“The coach­es have re­al­ly in­stilled in us to be free and back your game plans and en­joy your crick­et,” War­ri­can shared. “Any time you step on a field, don’t be tense. Don’t put too much pres­sure on your­self. Just try and en­joy the mo­ment and live in the mo­ment. Just have some fun while you’re play­ing, but still be aware of what’s hap­pen­ing around you.”

Ul­ti­mate­ly, War­ri­can knows that suc­cess will come down to ex­e­cu­tion on the day. The plan is sim­ple: to adapt to con­di­tions quick­ly and as­sess sit­u­a­tions right off the bat.

CMC