"Somebody has to be looking to score a hundred and hold the team together" - Phil Simmons wants West Indies to bat out 50 overs in the ODI series against India 

West Indies head coach Phil Simmons wants the batting unit to bat in cohesion and bat out the entirety of the 50 overs in the innings. In the recently culminated home ODI series against Bangladesh, the Nicholas Pooran-led were far from playing out the innings.

The batting department has posed a concern for the West Indies, especially in ODIs where they have only won four out of their last 13 bilateral series since the 2019 World Cup. The team are on the back of two consecutive series losses against Pakistan and Bangladesh as well.

Asserting that batting out 50 overs is the priority for the team at the moment, Simmons told ESPN Cricinfo:

"The main thing is how we bat our 50 overs…we have to bat 50 overs and put our innings together and partnerships together. Somebody has to be looking to score a hundred and hold the team together. Batting-wise that is it."

The hosts were at the end of some challenging batting surfaces at the Providence Stadium in Guyana against Bangladesh. However, Simmons expects a much more sporting track at the Port of Spain, which hosts its first fixture in nearly three years. As a result, he expects a much better batting performance, albeit a strong Indian bowling unit on the other side. He added:

"You expect a better batting performance. I think we don't really want to make any excuses and in the last game we showed what we should've shown in the first two games…I'm not hiding the fact that they were bad cricket wickets on the whole, but I expect different here. The wicket has looked good and yes it [India] is a stronger bowling team but we expect a better batting performance."

The two-time World Cup winners failed to reach the 200-run mark in the 3-0 series loss to Bangladesh. The same trend was observed when West Indies toured India earlier this year for a white-ball series.

"The bowling and the fielding has been improving daily" - Phil Simmons

Despite a tame series loss to Bangladesh where West Indies could only pick up 11 wickets across three ODIs, Simmons is not overly concerned about the bowling and fielding department.

The return of Jason Holder is slated to be a huge boost for the bowling attack primarily comprising Alzarri Joseph, Jayden Seales, Akeal Hossain and Keemo Paul.

Defending the bowling attack's display in the recently concluded series against Bangladesh, Simmons said:

"The bowling and the fielding has been improving daily. We rank ourselves very highly on the fielding. The bowling, we had couple of games on those wickets where people might say we should've gotten more wickets but the wicket got better every time we fielded because they had put out the second roller on it and it had dried out from earlier in the day,"

West Indies will host India for a white-ball series consisting of three ODIs and five T20Is. The tour is scheduled to begin with the first ODI tomorrow (July 22) in Port of Spain.