Windies coach Phil Simmons believes that the extended preparations after early arrival due to Covid-19 protocols have actually played a key part in his side’s four-wicket win in the first Test. West Indies, who arrived in England on June 9 and trained in a bio-secure environment after that, beat the home side by four wickets on the final day of the first Test.
“I think that has been the biggest influence on the performance. The fact that we’ve been here for that period of time, we’ve had quality bowling in the nets because we’ve had nearly 11 seamers here, you can’t put a price on that,” he said on the eve of the second Test.
“I don’t like to go back into my (playing) days, but we would come to England and play something like three or four proper warm-up games before the first Test, and we would also have three-day or four-day games in between the Test matches. So I think that period of training goes a long way to how we performed in that first Test.”
While praising the resolve of his players in the first Test, he warned the West Indies cricketers to guard against complacency.
“For me it was a great win because I think that it signified a lot of hard work being done by the players over the last four or five weeks. It was a top-class Test match, with good cricket played by both teams, and even coming down to the last hour, it could have gone either way.
“But you guard against complacency by just trying to do the same things you did before the first Test. Right now that Test match is history. We’ve got to be thinking about what we do from Thursday to Monday,” the 57-year-old former all-rounder said.