For West Indies, in its series-levelling win here on Wednesday, Keemo Paul was that man. At the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, a 10-over-old ball tends to stick in the surface, fertile ground for a clever bowler to deploy his variations and potentially change the face of the game.
“We have some pretty long team bowling meetings. So we don’t take that (success with the ball) for granted. “From the batsmen’s perspective, after the first five overs, the message we got was it was a pretty good wicket. One or two balls were gripping, but other than that, it was pretty good. Normally, we weren’t getting any grip, but it actually worked here. The game plan was to stick bowling into the wicket as long as possible.”
I knew what I wanted to do, I knew what my field setting was, and I knew my plan,” he said, adding, “Obviously, I won’t share my plan (with you), but I think I executed pretty well tonight.
“The margin for error is very, very thin. It all comes down to execution. It’s just about one day at a time. It’s all about the process. Once you try to stick to the team plan as much as possible, I don’t think the (coaching) staff would have a problem (if it doesn’t work out in the end).”