Pollard wants to raise standard in ODI series
Published:Tuesday | July 20, 2021 | 12:10 AMLennox Aldred/Gleaner Writer
West Indies captain Kieron Pollard is hoping that the momentum gained from the Twenty20 (T20) series win against Australia recently will transcend into the One-Day Internationals (ODI) which bowl off today at 1:30 p.m. Jamaica time at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados.
The morale-boosting 4-1 win will mean the Windies will start as slight favourites. However, they will have different personnel to choose from in the longer format.
The West Indies will welcome back Shai Hope, who had a prolific series against Sri Lanka, where he topped the batting with 258 runs in the three matches with one century and two half-centuries.
Along with Hope, Roston Chase is set to return and provide that batting and bowling option in the middle order with former captain Jason Holder, who was rested for the T20 series.
Pollard, who is also expected to return after missing the T20 series, is hoping he can replicate his last series form against the Aussies, where he averaged over 40 runs in 2016 in the Tri-Series.
The right-hander, who has scored two of his three ODI centuries against the visitors, is keen to put on another show, this time on home soil.
“I must say I enjoy playing against the Aussies,” Pollard said. “I love their fight and determination and that is also my character on the cricket field. I would love to score some runs against them again and hopefully, if that happens that means we are doing well as a team.”
NINTH IN LEAGUE
With 90 points on offer, Pollard and the West Indies, who are ninth in the ICC Men’s Super League table, will be hoping to secure the maximum against the third-ranked Aussies, in a bid to strengthen their chances of automatic qualification for the 2023 World Cup.
“My focus would be that we tick our boxes and do our basics and hopefully at the end of the day we get 90 points and if not, we will take 60.”
Like the West Indies, the Australians are coming off an ODI series win against India after a 2-1 result in December. They could enter today’s match without regular captain Aaron Finch, who is trying to shake off a knee injury.
With the batting set to revolve around Mitchell Marsh, Josh Philippe and Matthew Wade, the bowling unit will be spearheaded by fast bowler Mitchell Starc, who is looking forward to bowling on the much more bowler-friendly Kensington pitch.
“We’ll see a better set of wickets in Barbados than we did in St Lucia,” Starc said. “There’s still that wind that we get across the ground, there’s still some smallish boundaries, but we’re still promoting nice aggressive play, and we want to see that intent.”