Carl Hooper slams senior Windies players for pulling out of India tour

Former Windies captain, Carl Hooper wasn’t happy with his team losing the first T20I in Kolkata. In the absence of a senior players, their batsmen struggled to put up a decent total on the board. Hooper slammed the senior players for not turning out to play for West Indies. While Chris Gayle made himself unavailable for the whole tour and featured in the Afghanistan Premier League (APL), Evin Lewis pulled out at the eleventh hour citing personal reasons.

Despite their absence, the visitors possessed a strong unit and were immensely strengthened with Andre Russell’s inclusion in the squad. But even he was ruled out of the series on the eve of the series opener due to his longstanding knee injury.

“It’s a shame that some players are not interested in playing for the West Indies. I don’t know why they are not interested to play for the team, but it’s clear that they are not interested,” Hooper was quoted as saying by India TV. According to him, the current West Indian side is a relatively young side and the presence of the senior players in the side is absolutely vital for the nurturing of the youngsters.

We need to be consistent

The Windies lost the first T20 by five wickets and now trail 1-0 in the 3 match series. The visitors have already lost the test series and the ODI series 2-0 and 3-1 respectively. Carl Hooper was of the opinion that the match would have been tougher for the Indians if the Windies had a full-strength squad. He also cited the senior players’ attitude towards their national side as the reason to the Windies’ embarrassing defeat against Afghanistan in the ICC World Cup qualifiers final.

Looking at the future, Hooper seemed extremely positive about the growing talent in West Indies Cricket. However, at the same time, Hooper believes that the Windies should play a more consistent brand of cricket. “Some days we are playing well, some days we are not performing according to the situation. We need to be consistent,” Hooper opined.

The second T20 gets underway on Tuesday  in Lucknow and the visitors will be hopeful of turning it around this time. India, on the other hand, will look to seal the series in the second game itself and try more players in the dead rubber.

~Written by Daiwik Tadikonda