ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2021

October 25, 2021

Roddy Estwick

Dubai International Stadium

West Indies

Pre Match Media Conference

Q. In regards to the conditions, do you believe, despite the spinners that have a big impact, I assume if the faster men can hit the wicket hard, bowl out of their rotations, they could become very crucial, go deeper in the tournament?

RODDY ESTWICK: Obviously if you look at the conditions here, especially in Dubai, where we played, there was a bit in it for the paces.

Obviously tomorrow, Christopher Jordan, people like that, who bowl into the pitch with a nice change of pace got the rewards. I believe that there's enough for both spinners and pacers. It is all about assessing the conditions.

The pitch will give you the information, and the team that grabs that information the quickest and executes their skills the best, they will come out on top. Because the pitch will always give you the information. Pitches change from day to day.

You might go into a game where you want to hit the pitch hard but you realize that the pitch is not that type of pitch. The ball is standing up. You might have to bowl it a little bit fuller or you might find that the ground is a lot smaller on one side so you might have to go to depth early.

So there's lots of information to be gathered, and the thing about it is accessing it as quick as possible and then executing your skills.

Q. Could you give some insight on the rationale to continue to have Chris at 3? We know at opening batting, he's second to none. Then went to T20. But his numbers and performances at 3 so far haven't come to fruition in big innings. And at Australia did you see why the team management has continued to persist with Gayle at 3 rather than having him open?

RODDY ESTWICK: If I gave you the answer to that question, the press would have a field day tomorrow and it would be all over the press saying, well, Estwick said this, well, Estwick said that. We're asking Chris Gayle to do a role.

Chris is very experienced. If you look at a lot of the teams, they want to bowl their spinners. And we felt that at No. 3, it gives him a chance to have a matchup against the spin attack.

Chris has been a wonderful server for West Indies cricket. We still expect great things from him, but he also has a lot of in terms of addressing the room and helping the younger players.

Sometimes we tend to just look at performances and we tend to think that the numbers don't match up. But there's a lot more to a cricketer, and there's a lot more to an experienced player in terms of the dressing room, in terms of helping the youngsters in terms of helping them to field as well.

What people tend to forget as well is Chris offers a spin option. If you look at the Australian, when we played against Australia, Chris bowled really well. So there's a lot of roles that Chris has to play within the team.

Just don't look at the performance. Look at in the past, he's done very, very well at the World Cup level. And I'm sure before the tournament is finished he will do well again.

Q. You talk about Chris's role. Again it was to clarify, he's been doing well and has done well opening the batting. So just to be clear, why you keep him at 3 and why you persist with him at 3 because I think that could be a factor, Roston Chase (indiscernible) because Gayle opening in the batting, his numbers really aren't in his favour but at No. 3, the numbers don't really add up that much. Just clarify why is Gayle at 3 and not given the option to open?

RODDY ESTWICK: That's down to the selectors. That has nothing to do with me. I'm here just to coach players. But if you look at Roston Chase, his numbers at No. 3, he's only batted once at No. 3 in T20 cricket. For St. Lucia start, he batted at No. 4 all the way through and did very well in the last two years.

You've got to look at your makeup of the side. You don't just pick players, because you've got 15 players. So you have to pick and try and get your best combination. And the selectors obviously felt that going into the England game, that was our best combination. We can't hide behind the fact that we didn't bat well.

It doesn't matter who played. As a batting unit, we didn't do well enough. We didn't do ourselves justice. And to start with, if you're going to get bowl out in 14 point odd overs in a T20 game, it just tells you that we didn't bat well enough.

But we've got to bounce back. We've got to work hard to get that right. And that's going to be very important for us. We've got to make sure that whoever walks on that park is ready, is prepared well enough to go and execute the skills and have enough confidence in their own ability to do what is needed.

Q. Wanted to check, the turnaround time has been quite quick from the last match. How has been the mood in the camp going forward to looking forward to tomorrow's match?

RODDY ESTWICK: Well, one bad game doesn't make a summer. We realize we had a bad game. We've had a chat about it. The players had some volleyball yesterday to help them to relax to try, to try to build some team spirit. But we're about to have a practise session now.

The one thing you can do is, once you lose a game you can look for all the excuses in the world. You can nitpick all you want. You've got to bat the players. Our job is to get the players up, make sure they remain confident, make sure they still believe in their ability. Make sure the dressing room is still a happy place and let them go enjoy the game of cricket, because that's why they started playing.

You start playing cricket because you enjoy doing it. They're fortunate enough that they become international superstars and they are representing their country. But at the end of the day, it's all about enjoyment. And once the enjoyment comes first and the attitude is right, then your skill level will remain high and your discipline will remain very high.