– Springer

Longer matches key to improvement

West Indies Women’s head coach, Hendy Springer, believes the squad’s development would be further enhanced by playing two and three-day matches.

Speaking after the hosts came from behind to earn a 1-1 draw in the three-match ICC Women’s Championship series against South Africa at Kensington Oval last week, Springer said the longer matches would also help improve the consistency of the players.

“[They need to be] more consistent. Me and the captain (Stafanie Taylor) had a long discussion [during the series]... not only about consistency, but about the things that would generate consistency,” the former Barbados off-spinner said.

“I am one who believes that at some point in time we should play longer games – two-day, three-day games – to ask these girls to bat, ‘let me see what you’re really made of’, as opposed to just the Twenty20 and 50 over.

“I believe their range of skill would be sharpened because of the length of the game.”

West Indies Women drew the ODI series 1-1 and lead the T20 International series, 1-0, heading into the Trinidad leg.

The Windies entered the one-day international series as favourites, but suffered a shock 40-run defeat in their opening game to fall 1-0 behind in the series.

They faced a decider in Saturday’s final match after the second ODI was washed out, and they executed brilliantly to come away with a 115run victory.

The Windies then drew first blood in the five-match Twenty20 series when they beat the Proteas by 17 runs on Monday, despite managing only 124 batting first.

The last four T20Is will be played at the Brian Lara Stadium in Trinidad starting Friday, and Springer believes it will take more hard work to clinch the series.