ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Head coach of the West In­dies Test team, An­dre Co­ley is hop­ing that his side can bounce back from the dis­ap­point­ment of their last Test se­ries loss to South Africa when they take on Bangladesh in a two-match Test se­ries be­gin­ning Fri­day.

With the Windies set to play Pak­istan in two Test match­es in Jan­u­ary 2025, Co­ley said the play­ers were look­ing to end the year on a win­ning note and take some mo­men­tum in­to that se­ries.

The open­ing Test against Bangladesh bowls off at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um on Fri­day.

“Com­ing off of the dis­ap­point­ment of the South Africa se­ries, where we re­al­ly put our­selves in a po­si­tion to close out that se­ries, we didn’t and we now have this op­por­tu­ni­ty against Bangladesh,” Co­ley said.

“We’ve al­ways had ex­cit­ing se­ries against Bangladesh so it’s very im­por­tant for us to get a win­ning re­sult on home soil…

“It’s the fi­nal four Test match­es in this edi­tion of the World Test Cham­pi­onship, so it’s im­por­tant for us to do well here, win the se­ries and cre­ate a bit of mo­men­tum head­ing in­to Pak­istan,” he added.

The West In­dies have not lost a Test se­ries at home to Bangladesh since 2009 and the Kraigg Brath­waite-led team will be hop­ing to ex­tend that record.

Co­ley main­tained that the se­ries gives both sea­soned and emerg­ing play­ers an op­por­tu­ni­ty to im­press.

“Each match bears a dif­fer­ent op­por­tu­ni­ty. We have some play­ers here who would have played against Bangladesh home and away and they would have been suc­cess­ful in those se­ries.

"The play­ers are fa­mil­iar with each oth­er and we al­so have some new play­ers who would not have played in any of those se­ries so it is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for se­nior play­ers and emerg­ing play­ers to show what they’re ca­pa­ble of, what we’re ca­pa­ble of as a team, and as we con­tin­ue to build, an op­por­tu­ni­ty to put every­thing to­geth­er on the back of the last year and a half and look to close out the year in re­al­ly good form,” Co­ley said.

The head coach said while prepa­ra­tions at train­ing camp had not gone as smooth­ly as ex­pect­ed, the team was still in high spir­its ahead of Fri­day’s open­ing day.

“The first three or four days in An­tigua we were ham­pered by rain, but we’ve been since able to have a cou­ple of good ses­sions,” Co­ley said.

“We’re all in good spir­its, every­body is fit and avail­able.”

CMC