West Indies skipper Shai Hope has confirmed that his own position in the order may shift during this year’s T20 World Cup, a move he believes will help accommodate rookie middle-order hitter Quentin Sampson and, crucially, cut down the side’s long-standing battle with dot balls.
Sampson, 24, only broke into senior T20 cricket five months ago, yet 241 runs at a strike-rate of 151.57 for Guyana Amazon Warriors convinced selectors he was ready for a global tournament. Hope, who shared a dressing-room with him in the CPL, said the youngster’s brief audition ticked several boxes. “He’s shown that he’s had a lot of promise from the first few games that he played in CPL,” the captain noted. “[He is] certainly one of the cleaner ball strikers that I’ve seen in a long time… He also showed the ability to adapt to certain conditions, especially when there’s spin involved.”
That ability surfaced on debut against Afghanistan in Dubai, where Sampson launched Rashid Khan for two early sixes on his way to 30 from 24 deliveries. “So, he’s one of those ones that I think can definitely play a role in these sort of conditions that we’re going to,” Hope added. “We saw in his debut game against Afghanistan, he negated the likes of Rashid Khan and some of the most experienced spinners across world cricket. When you’ve got the likes of Rovman [Powell] and the rest of the guys, who are power-hitters – you still have to have that depth. I think he’ll be one that can probably follow the likes of Rovman and those guys, who can finish the innings, and play spin in the middle period.”
West Indies lost that Afghanistan series 2-1, a result laid bare by their inability to rotate the strike. “From a batting standpoint, dot balls have been our Achilles heel for quite some time. And it’s important as batters, we limit those dot balls,” Hope admitted. “And we’ve got power-hitters, guys who score freely and know how to get boundaries… So, if we can limit those dot balls with the boundaries, then we’re going to give ourselves the best chance of maximising runs and scoring big totals or chasing anything that teams put on the board.”
The World Cup will be staged across India and Sri Lanka, locations where spin traditionally plays a leading hand. Hope sees no guarantee of slow, tacky surfaces, though. “Spin would be a threat in those conditions [in India and Sri Lanka for the T20 World Cup]. Having said that, it could be completely different. It could be grass, fast and bouncy. Who knows?” he said, stressing the need for bowlers and batters alike to stay nimble. “So we’ve still got to ensure that we’re prepared and ready for that… We can always have to change the way we go about playing our innings as batters and as bowlers, how we have to assess certain conditions, where we have to take more pace off, if you’ve got to take the pitch out of the equation.”
Before the World Cup, Hope welcomes back Roston Chase, Akeal Hosein and Sherfane Rutherford – all returning from SA20 duties – for a short home series against South Africa. That trio, plus the still-green Sampson, leaves the captain with what he calls “pleasant problems” when he sits down to write the first XI.
The softly-spoken wicketkeeper-batter finished the media call with a grin, halfway through a sentence that trailed off as he gathered his notes. “The best thing for our—” he paused, offered a half-shrug and joked that the real answers would have to wait until the toss in Barbados. Imperfect planning, perhaps, yet it mirrors the candid, slightly messy honesty the West Indies say they are embracing as they chase a third T20 crown.
