Southampton [UK], June 11 : Former West Indies pacer and commentator Ian Bishop has said that the team needs a reset ahead of next year's T20 World Cup co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka.
Bishop's comments came after the side's loss to England in the UK in the three-match T20I series, losing the final T20I by 37 runs at Southampton on Tuesday.
This loss becomes even more painful as the side is up for a transition. Leading T20I batter, Nicholas Pooran announced his retirement from all formats of international cricket on Tuesday.
Announcing his retirement at just 29 years of age, Pooran mustered 2,275 in the shortest format of cricket, averaging 26.14 at 136.39. While in the 50-over cricket, he tallied 1,983 runs at 39.66 while maintaining a strike rate of 99.15, laced with three centuries and 11 fifties.
Speaking as per a video by Sky Sports Cricket, Bishop said, "I think they are going to have to have a little bit of a reset. Pooran has been their real star performer for the last couple of years, and they have not gone as deep, even with him, as they would have hoped in the last few global events. Johnson Charles at the top is not giving them the firing power really that they need, and Brandon King has fallen out of a little bit of form in T20 internationals."
Since 2024, Charles has scored just 418 runs in 18 T20Is at an average of 23.22, with two fifties and a strike rate of 133.55. This year, he has made 74 runs in three matches, with his strike rate dipping to just over 112. King has not played a T20I since last year, having ended the year with 407 runs in 18 innings at an average of 23.94, with a strike rate of over 140 and three fifties.
In the previous T20 World Cup held at home and the US, WI crashed out in the Super Eight stage, despite Pooran top-scoring with 228 runs in seven matches, averaging 38.00 at a strike rate of above 146, with a half-century to his name.
Since the last T20 WC, West Indies has had a poor run of form, with just five wins, 11 losses and a no result in 17 matches.
Bishop said that the team would hope that their skipper Shai Hope scores more, having made 451 runs in 16 matches since last year at an average of 34.69, with three fifties and a SR of 156.60.
"Rovman Powell and Jason Holder, good to see them back. I do not know whether Andre Russell can sort of refine some health and some form. And then the bowling concerns me more than anything else. It has for a while that it is not holding its own, and the identity of the team is still one where they will chase in order to try to win, or they need to set huge totals as England have done. So it is a concerning little time with a World Cup next year," the legend said.
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