SOUTHAMPTON, England – West Indies assistant coach Roddy Estwick spoke to members of the media ahead of the team’s third match of the ICC Cricket World Cup. The contest will be at the Hampshire Bowl and first ball on Monday is 10:30am (5:30am Eastern Caribbean Time/4:30am Jamaica Time). West Indies players enjoyed a full training session on Sunday at the Nursery Ground and Estwick said they are fully focused on the upcoming contest against the Proteas. The two-time World Cup winners have a 1-1 record in the tournament – a comprehensive win by seven wickets over Pakistan and a close 15-run defeat to Australia.
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Coverage will be LIVE on ESPN and ESPN2 in the Caribbean. ESPN Play – ESPN’s multiscreen live and on-demand broadband service – will stream all the matches.
“We are obviously confident, but we have to respect South Africa as well. They are a good side. They have lost three games … but we know they have world-class players so we can’t underestimate their ability. We have to go out and play hard and smart cricket and stick to our game plans,” Estwick said.
“Every West Indian is in this. This is big for the Caribbean people. One thing that we have been stressing is to go out and put a smile on the people’s faces in the Caribbean. Economically we are struggling a little bit, so we want people to wake up in the morning at 5 o’clock and 6 o’clock with a smile on their face, seeing West Indians playing good cricket.
“We have to target 100 overs. At the end of the 100 overs, we have got to make sure that we are on the winning side. We just can’t single out one part of the game. Once you do that and that part of the game has any resistance, then your game plan falls down. We have a plan for 100 overs and we have to go and execute.”
West Indies have taken all 20 wickets available so far and Estwick was full of praise for the bowlers. They bowled out the Pakistanis for 105 in the opening encounter and dismissed the Aussies for 288 both times at Trent Bridge.
“Before the start of the tournament, everybody was saying that teams are going to make 360, 380, some teams will make 400, some teams will make 500. We bowled both teams out for under 300 runs, so we are very happy with the way the bowlers have executed. What we must do is play the one percenters a bit better and I’m sure if we did that in the last game, we would have won the game. We are all in it together. We are not going to single out the bowlers and say the bowlers did a poor job, or the batsmen did a poor job, it is a team.”
FULL SQUAD
Jason Holder (Captain)
Chris Gayle (Vice Captain)
Fabian Allen
Carlos Brathwaite
Darren Bravo
Sheldon Cottrell
Shannon Gabriel
Shimron Hetmyer
Shai Hope
Evin Lewis
Ashley Nurse
Nicholas Pooran
Kemar Roach
Andre Russell
Oshane Thomas
MATCH SCHEDULE
(First ball is 5:30am Eastern Caribbean/4:30am Jamaica; unless otherwise stated)
Friday, May 31: vs Pakistan at Trent Bridge, Nottingham
West Indies won by 7 wickets; Details: https://bit.ly/31emdPM
Thursday, June 6: vs Australia at Trent Bridge, Nottingham
Australia won by 15 runs; Details: https://bit.ly/2QSdU7v
Monday, June 10: vs South Africa at Hampshire Bowl, Southampton
Friday, June 14: vs England at Hampshire Bowl, Southampton
Monday, June 17: vs Bangladesh at the County Ground, Taunton
Saturday, June 22: vs New Zealand at Old Trafford, Manchester (8:30am EC Time/7:30am Jamaica)
Thursday, June 27: vs India at Old Trafford, Manchester
Monday, July 1: vs Sri Lanka – at the Riverside Ground, Chester-le-Street
Thursday, July 4: vs Afghanistan at Headingley, Leeds
Semi-Finals
Tuesday, July 9: 1st vs 4th at Old Trafford, Manchester
Thursday, July 11: 2nd vs 3rd at Edgbaston, Birmingham
The Final
Sunday, July 14: Semi-final Winner 1 vs Semi-final Winner 2 at Lord’s
July 15: Reserve Day
-CWI
