admin
Brandon Moyo, Sports Reporter
WEST Indies who are without legend, Brian Lara, are in high spirits as they continue with their preparations for the two Test match series starting tomorrow at Queens Sports Club.
Lara left the country on Wednesday having arrived with the Windies team on January 23 ahead of the series. Yesterday West Indies held a longer training session to compensate for the time lost on Wednesday after rain disturbed their fine tuning.
West Indies bowling coach, Kenneth Benjamin said the departure of Lara has not interrupted their preparations for their first international outing of the year as they knew that he will be around for a short time.
“We knew from the onset that it was going to be just a short visit hence his departure has not affected our preparations,” said Benjamin.
He said all the players are in good form and to their advantage is the fact that some of them have been in
Zimbabwe before.
“The guys are in good form and we are happy with our preparations. A few of the guys have been here before,” said Benjamin.
The visitors got off their campaign with a three- day warm up match against Zimbabwe XI at the Bulawayo Athletic Club which concluded in a draw. Benjamin said they have collected some information after noting that some Zimbabwean players who took part in the warm up match also made it into the final squad of 16 for the series.
“We noticed that some of the players who played in the warm up match are in the Test team and I think it is good for us as we have played against them,” he said.
The first match of the series is scheduled for February 4-8 while the last will take place from February 12-16 at the same venue.
This will be the first five-day meeting between these two sides since 2017 when they also played two games, with the Windies winning the series 1-0. – @brandon_malvin
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter