SOUTHAMPTON, England – West Indies head coach Floyd Reifer spoke to members of the media after the third match of the ICC Cricket World Cup. Only 7.3 overs were possible against South Africa as the contest ended in a no-result at the Hampshire Bowl. Left-arm pacer Sheldon Cottrell (2-18) was again excellent with the new ball and gave the West Indies a bright start with early wickets, leaving the Proteas on 29-2 in the eighth over before the weather interrupted play.
Cottrell, the 29-year-old Jamaica Defence Force soldier, has now taken five wickets for 92 runs in the three matches. His first wicket was Hashim Amla well caught by Chris Gayle at slip – his 121st catch – which is a new West Indies record for outfielders. The second wicket was Aiden Markram brilliant taken by down the leg side by wicket-keeper Shai Hope– his ninth catch of the tournament.
West Indies will remain in Southampton where they prepare to face England in their fourth match. First ball on Friday is 10:30am (5:30am Eastern Caribbean Time/4:30am Jamaica Time).
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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.
“Yes, we were looking forward to the game, especially the start that we had. After they lost the first three games their confidence as a team will be a bit low, so we wanted to take a big advantage of that. Like I said, it’s the weather … it’s England … 90 percent chance rain today. So there is nothing we can do about it. We just have to take the one point, like I said before, and look forward to the other games,” Reifer said.
The former West Indies captain said the team is playing a special brand of cricket which has caught the imagination. He added that the plan is to look for wickets throughout the innings and try to bowl out opponents. West Indies took 20 wickets in their first two matches – they bowled out the Pakistan for 105 in the opening encounter and dismissed Australa for 288 – both times at Trent Bridge.
“In a competition like this, you come to England where the wickets are supposed to be flat and a lot of high scores. When you look at the games played before the World Cup there has been a lot of high scores as well. It is important for teams and important for us to take wickets,” Reifer added.
“…you see the brand of cricket that we are playing, we have created that new brand of cricket for West Indies, where we want to take wickets, we want to bowl out teams, so wickets are important. Wickets changes the tempo of the game, no matter what the situation, or in any format that you play. Wickets are important.”
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
No result due to rain; Details: https://bit.ly/2I5ZA8w
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
