Sport
Cricket World Cup 2015: West Indies fall to England in warm up game
The West Indies fell to England by nine wickets in a Pre-World Cup warm up.
West Indies team manager Richie Richardson said that his team were wary of peaking too soon at the World Cup.
“Not a very good start but it’s not about the start, it’s about the finish,” Richardson told reporters. “We are obviously disappointed with our performance but we will review it and come back. Our plan is to ease into the World Cup, we don’t want to peak too early. “Tonight is no reflection of how we have been training or anything to do with the mood in the camp. It was just very strange that England got the better of us in that particular way.”
The West Indies arrived at the World Cup in some turmoil and without former captain Dwayne Bravo after rows over player contracts led to the abandonment of a tour of India last October.
Richardson, however, said the abject manner of Monday’s defeat had come as a complete shock to him. “I have no explanation for it because I didn’t expect it,” he said. “People might be wondering what is going on. But I can safely say we have been playing well, the guys have been in very good spirits, it was just one of those things.
“Hopefully, you won’t see a performance like this from us again.”
The West Indies never really recovered from losing Darren Bravo and Chris Gayle for ducks in the opening over on Monday and Richardson said it would be wrong to read anything into the fact that the latter had not fielded.
“Chris Gayle has been training well, he has not really complained about any injuries, he played football with the guys this morning,” the former West Indies captain added. “He’s in good shape, we just want preserve him as much as possible and then hopefully as the tournament goes on he will go from strength to strength.”
