DOHA: Hosts West Indies will hope to put their indifferent form in the warm-ups behind them as they kick things off in the their ICC Under 19 World Cup Group D curtain-raiser against Australia at Providence Stadium, Guyana, today.
Floyd Reifer’s side slipped to heavy defeats against India and South Africa in the build-up, failing to cross the 200-barrier with the bat on both occasions.
However, the coach is not concerned about his side’s ability to score big, saying: “I think the batting comes down to the mindset of the players in terms of spending some more time at the crease and building some more partnerships.
“I would say the warm-up games that we have played were two low-scoring games, so I wouldn’t want to put too much emphasis on that.
“Yes, we know as a batting unit there are certain things we want to accomplish, guys building on starts and these are things we are discussing.
“I’m confident in the lads, we have a talented bunch of cricketers, we have some good batters here, it’s just a matter for us now to just do the one percenters right and then we will respond with some consistency.”
Australia also have plenty of questions to answer after a nine-wicket defeat to India in their only warm-up encounter but with two progressing from Group D, which also includes Scotland and Sri Lanka, their captain Cooper Connolly is still bullish about his side’s chances.
“[The India defeat] was a reality check for us against one of the strongest sides, maybe the favourite,” said Connolly, who was part of the Australia side that lost in the quarter-finals in South Africa two years ago.
“But our team is checking out really well and I feel like we’re in good shape for the first game.
“We can’t start off really easy, we’ve got to beat the West Indies and come out with a strong mindset. Hopefully we can knock them over.”
