Simmons frustrated as star players miss Test series

The second Test will be West Indies’ first Boxing Day Test since December 2000. “It’s pretty important to have a good opening stand and they’ve been doing a very good job, so the selectors thought that was the right way to go”, he said.

While fielding on the second day of the tour game in Geelong, Taylor missed a catch after he had his back turned to the action, while he appeared to be leaning over the boundary fence.

Given little chance prior to the start of the three-Test series, those odds have since widened following the Caribbean side’s poor showing on the tour, and pundits are already predicting much of the same when the second Test bowls off Saturday, reports CMC. Leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo may also come into contention at the MCG after Jomel Warrican was used in Hobart.

Josh Hazlewood wants the Boxing Day Test to finish quickly but Australia’s spearhead knows patience will be key at the MCG.

Middle-order batsman Darren Bravo says the series of defeats suffered by the West Indies in recent times are as a result of a lack of confidence by the batsmen. But these are hard times for someone who has captained his team in 3 Tests for 3 losses.

Since then, he has scored just 98 runs at 19.6 in his five Test innings.

“It’s not a burden, I’m enjoying the challenge”, Holder said of the captaincy, ahead of the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. We need to build and keep building. All of us go out there to try our best.

“But I just kept telling myself to trust my body and trust the work you’ve done”. “Once we understand that it’s easier to move forward”.

I really respect the fact that these guys are trying their best despite the circumstances, and the Windies do have some great talented young players coming through. For me, just looking at it, [we could be] just one good day away from a turnaround. There had been glimpses of promise from his team during those Tests, but they were odd moments here and there.

The Guyanan, a wicket-taker in a West Indies squad that appears to have very few of them, made his Test debut in 2011 in a maiden campaign that earned him the ICC’s Emerging Cricketer of the Year award.

“When you’re not scoring runs it’s always hard to pick yourself up”, Bravo said.

In their drawn warm-up match against Victoria X1, Brathwaite followed up his Test performance with a score of 78; Jermaine Blackwood rebounded from failing to get off the mark twice with a score of 69; while Marlon Samuels and Denesh Ramdin scored 45 and 38, respectively.

“We do have a lot of improvements within our games – batting and bowling. They’ve been bowling well up to that point”, Holder said.

“All we can do is prepare, play the way we have been playing and hopefully everything goes according to plan”. Captain Jason Holder has suggested that he might play Devendra Bishoo.

“We have to look at everything”.