Improvement more important than series win – Estwick

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):

West Indies assistant coach Roddy Estwick says the improvement shown in the recent Twenty20 International series against England was perhaps more pleasing than the actual 3-2 victory in the five-match rubber.

With the series tied 2-2, the home side beat the world number ones by 17 runs in a dramatic finish to the finale at Kensington Oval last Sunday, to claim only their second multi-game series win over England.

Embarrassing outing

More important, the success came on the heels of a 3-0 whitewash in Pakistan last December and an embarrassing outing at the Twenty20 World Cup a few months earlier, when they managed just one win in their group stage campaign.

“After the last couple of months that we’ve had, it’s really pleasing that we’ve won a series,” Estwick said.

“It was very important to bounce back. We’ve been having good meetings, we’ve exposed a lot of youngsters in this series and we’re beginning to show some kind of improvement, so that’s very important.

“Improvement for me is actually more important than winning the series because you’ve got to focus on getting to the 2022 World Cup and doing a lot better than we did in the last one.”

Due to their poor showing last year, West Indies will have to go through pre-tournament qualifiers in order to reach the main draw of the T20 World Cup in Australia from October 16 to November 13.