NORTH SOUND, Antigua, CMC – Assistant coach Roddy Estwick said Jomel Warrican embodied the hard work and improvement several of the West Indies A players made, as they completed a 3-0 clean sweep over England Lions in their three “Test” series.
Estwick praised Warrican, whose 31 wickets at 8.96 runs apiece, four hauls of five wickets or more in an innings and Player-of-the-Match awards in all three matches made him the most impressive player of either side in the series.
“We asked him to make a few adjustments which would allow him to get more body into his action, and he did very well and he got the results,” Estwick said in an interview with Cricket West Indies Media.
“In the first innings of the first match, he only got one wicket. I know him very well from working with him when he was at Combermere School and Barbados Pride set up, so we sat down and I informed him he was going too wide on the crease and asking the ball to do too much.”
Estwick added: “The next morning we went into the nets, worked on it and he bought into it – and the rest is history. He was outstanding for the rest of the series and was a thorn in the side of the England Lions batting.
“Once he came on to bowl, you can see that the scoring stopped and with Rahkeem Cornwall bowling well at the other end, it made it difficult for them. They were outstanding as a pair of spinners working together, and credit must go to Rahkeem for bowling tightly and also getting wickets at the other end.”
Estwick said Warrican provided evidence that with hard work and the willingness to take new things on board, the players could progress.
“At the end of the series, we would look at all the players and all the work that we have done with them over the last three weeks and we can see the improvement,” he said.
“They have got the information and so they can take it back with them into their franchises and continue to work on getting better.
“It’s an ongoing process. It’s not once you finish this series that you stop working or trying to improve, so they have the information, and can now go back and keep working hard.”
Estwick said the result of the series should also reassure West Indies fans that there was talent in the Caribbean and with the right attitudes the players can advance their game.
“This is an England Lions side with players that had outstanding county seasons and it’s not a mug of a team at all,” he said.
“We know that we have the talent and once we are prepared to work hard, we can achieve what we set out to do.”
He said: “Instead of putting a negative first, put a positive. Don’t say, no, just be prepared to work hard and sometimes in West Indies cricket that’s our biggest downfall. We are not prepared to work as hard as we should be doing, and we look at planning as something of a chore.
“I think once we can get these things right and are prepared to plan well we can achieve anything and that’s what this team was prepared to do, but it will not happen overnight, and we must continue to work hard because we have been in the doldrums for too long.”
The two sides start a series of three One-day matches next Tuesday, all to be played at the Coolidge Cricket Ground here.
