Powell has high hopes for Providence pitch

Source: Trinidad Guardian

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana - Rov­man Pow­ell has praised the im­prove­ment in the Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um pitch and says he hopes it re­flects the stan­dard of sur­faces through­out the re­gion for the ICC Twen­ty20 World Cup.

The pitch at the venue has in the past played low and slow but two games in the Caribbean Pre­mier League last year saw to­tals in ex­cess of 200, leav­ing Pow­ell with hope bats­men in the tour­na­ment will find run-scor­ing eas­i­er.

West In­dies take on Papua New Guinea at the venue on Sun­day, in Group C of the his­toric 20-team show­piece which is be­ing played on Unit­ed States soil for the first time.

"I think five years ago, it would have been such a spin­ning ground that it would be spin based," Pow­ell point­ed out.

"But over the last two or three-years Prov­i­dence has be­come a place where bat­ters start [to] like bat­ting. So we ex­pect ... we al­so have a lot of faith in the grounds­man that they will pre­pare good wick­ets ... they have pre­pared good wick­ets here for CPL where you get scores close to 200 or just over 200.

"This is a World Cup [and] we ex­pect them to con­tin­ue to pro­vide good wick­ets not just for us as West In­di­ans, not just for Papua New Guinea to­mor­row, but for the whole du­ra­tion of the World Cup.

"It's West In­dies on the show. We would want to put on a prop­er show, whether it be from a cu­rat­ing stand­point or a crick­et­ing stand­point."

The last two T20 In­ter­na­tion­als at the venue against In­dia last year - played pri­or to the CPL - pro­duced a high score of 164. Eng­land's 191 against West In­dies in the 2010 T20 World Cup re­mains the record venue to­tal.

Pow­ell, who was ap­point­ed cap­tain 16 months ago, said it was crit­i­cal that West In­dies bat­ted prop­er­ly re­gard­less of the con­di­tions.

"I think crick­et - T20 crick­et in the Caribbean - you have to be a lit­tle flex­i­ble," he ex­plained.

"There will come a time when you have to bat first on these wick­ets, and there will come a time when you have to chase. It's just be­ing flex­i­ble. And what­ev­er you do in the Caribbean, you just have to do it well. That is as sim­ple as it is.

"The Caribbean isn't an easy place for for­eign­ers to come and play crick­et, and we have seen that over the du­ra­tion of crick­et in the Caribbean.

"I think what­ev­er we do, we have to do it good - whether it be bat­ting first or bat­ting sec­ond - and I think that's the same sen­ti­ment that goes out for the oth­er 20 teams that are in the World Cup.

"You know in a World Cup whether you bat first or bat sec­ond you just have to do it good and if you bat first and bat prop­er­ly then you put the team bat­ting sec­ond un­der ad­di­tion­al pres­sure."

West In­dies are ex­pect­ed to eas­i­ly dis­pose of Papua New Guinea - ranked 20th in the lat­est ICC T20 charts - and Pow­ell said it was im­por­tant his side made a strong start to the June 1-29 tour­na­ment in or­der to set the tone for the cam­paign.

"It's very, very im­por­tant. Any World Cup cam­paign you play, you want to start off with a win­ning note," he stressed.

"You want to start off with get­ting your feet wet from a win­ning per­spec­tive. Win­ning dri­ves con­fi­dence with­in the group, and it's im­por­tant for us to start on a win­ning note.

"So def­i­nite­ly that is some­thing high on our agen­da. So hope­ful­ly to­mor­row the rain can stay away and West In­dies can play close to a pret­ty good game." CMC