Grenada’s Prime Minister, Dr. the Right Honourable Keith Mitchell, a former national cricket player and ardent cricket fan, has described the T20 matches between West Indies and South Africa thus far, as “extremely good cricket”.
Dr. Mitchell who has attended the three matches played so far said, “As a serious cricket fan, I like to see a high level of competition and the second and third matches were very competitive. West Indies clearly had the strong upper-hand in the first game.
The matches have been exciting and that’s good for the spectators. Overall, it has been extremely good cricket and the country has benefitted enormously from the publicity it has gotten.”
Dr. Mitchell believes the current West Indies team is one of the better ones picked by the selectors but he identifies the need for a better strategy.
He said, “In the two games that they lost, I believe not enough strategic thinking was applied to certain parts of the game.
They may have to look at a couple of changes because there are players who are on the team and here in Grenada, who have not played the second or third game.”
Dr. Mitchell, himself a spin bowler who captained the Grenada team, observed that “batsmen were too flat-footed against spinners.”
He said, “In a one-day game, that’s not acceptable in my opinion from playing cricket over the years.
You almost have to be a dancer to a spinner; you can’t be flat-footed in the wicket, it’s dangerous.
I much prefer to see a batsman use his feet and get out rather than stand in the wicket and still get out. It doesn’t look good and it doesn’t send the right message to younger players who aspire to play at a certain level of cricket.”
The Grenadian leader who has constantly reiterated the need for COVID-19 vaccination, said he would have liked to see more people attend the cricket matches.
He said, “It is unfortunate that more people did not take the opportunity to be vaccinated so we could see a lot more people in the stands.
To have a large crowd in the stadium, we have to insist on the vaccination process and I hope that would provide more incentive for people to vaccinate, as Grenada looks forward to hosting more cricket matches.”
The final two T20 matches are scheduled for Thursday and Saturday.
