Former West Indies fast bowler, Kenneth “Flipper” Benjamin, believes the regional squad has a good chance of winning this year’s ICC Men’s T20 World Cup slated to bowl off on Saturday here in the Caribbean and the USA.
Speaking recently on the Good Morning Jojo sports show, Benjamin said the Windies are just as good as any of the other teams tipped to lift this year’s title but said showing up on the day will make the difference.
“T20 is never going to be the best team that wins and you might find that every now and again, T20 is so dynamic that on any given day and look at India, we all expected India to win [in 2022] but on a particular day anything can happen. In a T20, all you need is two good balls, one good over, one good spell, a good innings or maybe even two boundaries at the right time and a team can pull off an upset,” he said.
West Indies will play in Group C alongside Afghanistan, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Uganda with their opening fixture scheduled for Sunday against Papua New Guinea.
Benjamin said the team seems balanced in terms of options but believes their biggest challenge will be from the mental aspect.
“It is a mental issue, it is psychology and obviously what would happen is that the teams who are playing against the home team would just remind them of that and some players can put it at the back of their minds but some players and some coaches, it would actually play with their minds so I think it is not really important physically but I think, mentally, it would have an effect on most coaches and players,” he said.
West Indies Squad: Rovman Powell (c), Alzarri Joseph, Johnson Charles, Roston Chase, Shimron Hetmyer, Obed McCoy, Shai Hope, Akeal Hosein, Shamar Joseph, Brandon King, Gudakesh Motie, Nicholas Pooran, Andre Russell, Sherfane Rutherford, and Romario Shepherd.
