We can’t make any excuse about youthful team: Phil Simmons

A demoralizing loss at the hands of India in the first Test at Antigua has seen West Indies coach Phil Simmons come out all guns blazing in a bid to defend the team. Speaking at the press conference a day prior to the start of the second Test at Sabina Park, Simmons sounded blunt when he accepted that the Windies had played rather poorly in the opening Test at Antigua.

“We know we didn’t play well and I think that is the good thing about it. If we had played well and we got beaten like that, then something would be wrong. So, we didn’t play well and we just have to make sure that we hit our straps when we are here,” Simmons was quoted as saying by the West Indian daily Jamaica Observer.

“You can’t be demoralised with one Test out of four because there are still three Test matches to go. You don’t look for excuses, you look for reasons why you do things wrong and the reason is that we didn’t bowl well and we didn’t bat well. So we have to do both of them well and we can’t ask for anything else,” said Simmons, who is heading the team since last year.

Simmons also added that the fact that the West Indies team is youthful and inexperienced cannot be used as an excuse anymore. “We can’t make any excuse for the youthful team. If you are there on the team you need to bat and you need to bowl, so we just didn’t bowl well and we didn’t put on enough partnerships when we batted,” he said.

Also read – WI v IND, 2nd Test Preview: Windies aim for redemption in Jamaica

“So it is a case of having to make sure that we do everything that matters in this match to make the series even. This is what we have and we need to make use of what we have and perform.

“We have to work hard on what we didn’t do well. If we do things well then we can say it’s the best we have, but we have to do things well first. We need to play well and then we will see where we are as a unit,” said Simmons, who has scored 1002 runs from 26 Test matches.

Also read – Ishant Sharma calls for positivity ahead of second Test