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Originally Posted by Gowza
yes you are correct when you say this, WI can put together quite a good first XI but their bench players are horrible, i think they have a couple of decent pacers coming through but overall their bench strength is shocking.
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Hi bang fans, looking at this statement i can't really agree with it to be honest, the HPC squad are effectively a collection of some of the best youngsters around the region, most have already established themselves in all formats for their countries but the academy offers them extra training and more matches to hone their skills, plus it's run by coaches from English county teams from the likes of Middlesex who worked with Steven Finn, Oign Morgan to name a few,
The group on this tour are the second bunch, the first group was a success and developed the likes of Shannon Gabriel (who just got four wickets vs England in his first test), Kieran Powell (just scored a ton against NZ) and Devon Thomas (who has also played for the WI senior team against Bang at the last world cup),
Many of the other youngsters from that first HPC group are in the A-team that just took India-A apart recently, an India team including senior internationals like Rohit Sharma, Pujara, Tiwary, Saha, Mukund, Rahane and Rahul Sharma amoungst others ,
HERE is one of the scorecards,
In all honesty i think this second group who'll be playing in this tour are very talented, the Captain is an alrounder named Carlos Brathwaite who has very good stats with both bat and ball and has been hailed as someone who could finally get Sammy out of the senior team, he averages 21 with the ball and 27 with the bat in 13 first class matches, one of those knocks was an 81 not out vs England lions, he also has 50s vs Bang-A already,
Another name to look out for is the Jamaican Sheldon Cotterrell who is a VERY FAST left-arm pacer who a lot of people in the caribbean are excited about, he can swing the ball and is quite aggressive so it will be interesting to see how he does, in the batting department there is Kyle Hope who is very stylish, Keddy Lesporis who is a grinder and has a habit of getting 50s, Jermaine Blackwood who is just getting his big break now after impressing for the Jamaica senior team in the limited games he's played for them and Andre Fletcher who already has an A-team ton vs India under his belt and has played for the WI one day and t20 senior teams already,
There are some other decent pacers too like Jason Dawes who looks a little like Kemar Roach but still a little raw, and Miguel Cummins who is a abit of a mystery right now because he hasn't played a lot for Barbados yet, the left-arm spinner Veerasammy Permaul who captained the A-team to victory against India has been drafted in late to replace opening batsman Johnson Charles who is with the t20 world cup squad, so he'll provide the spin with a young Trinidad leggy named Yannic Cariah, who got 13 wickets for Trinidad last year in his debut season aged just 19,
All in all i expect it to be a tough series and may the best team win, these games can only benefit both Bang and WI in the long term, i'm confident that our boys can do well but i do still remember the tough time your A-team gave our lads last year in the caribbean, we just about won the four day series when a then unknown Sunil Narine got us over the line by hitting a 40 not out,
Hopefully you guys will be able to give regular updates because i've been told that the west indies Twitter won't be doing live updates i'm afraid!!
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