LEICESTER, England, CMC – West Indies Women’s head coach, Henderson Springer, has lamented the lack of discipline exhibited in Thursday’s heavy loss to England in the first One-Day International, and says attitudes will have to change if the side are turn around their fortunes in the three-match series.
Playing in the opening game of the ICC Women’s Championship series, West Indies slumped to their largest-ever margin of defeat against England when they went down by 208 runs at Grace Road.
“I think it’s basically a lack of discipline because … we didn’t do 99 per cent of the things that we sat down and planned, practiced and discussed,” Springer said.
“We didn’t hit our targets early so we had to suffer with that in the end.”
Choosing to bat first, England piled up an imposing 318 for nine off their 50 overs with captain Heather Knight gathering a run-a-ball 94 and opener Amy Jones stroking 91.
In reply, West Indies never looked the part as they crashed to 27 for three in the 11th over and failed recovered, despite a fighting unbeaten 42 off 75 balls from middle order batsman Chedean Nation.
She was the only player to pass 20 and just one of four in double figures, as West Indies were bowled out for a paltry 110 off 36 overs.
With the second ODI set for Worcester on Sunday, Springer warned that a change in mindset was required.
“[There must be a change in the] attitudes generally to the job that we have to do,” the former Barbados off-spinner pointed out.
“One is to win, which is more important and once you want to win, you have to take the things that you are doing seriously. I believe there is a lack of seriousness sometimes moving into these big encounters. We are here to win, we’re here to compete not just to participate.”
He added: “We have to prove that we can be up there to compete. We have worked hard over the past couple of months, over the past year and some, and this is not an indication of the amount of work that we have put in.”
Springer also bemoaned the lack of accuracy when West Indies bowled. They were in the hunt after reducing England to 61 for two in the ninth over but Knight and Jones then feasted on loose bowling in putting on 146 for the third wicket.
“[We were] generally inaccurate. Not the plans we had focussed on, [not] what we had done in net sessions [and not] what we had discussed,” Springer lamented.
“In some cases, not what we had done against Ireland [in the preceding series] – albeit a lesser opposition there. We didn’t hit our targets at all … giving up 300 hundred runs obviously will put you under some pressure.”
