For­mer West In­dies open­ing bats­man Richard Gabriel has called on Test cap­tain Kraigg Brath­waite to im­prove his bat­ting tech­nique, say­ing that his cur­rent bat­ting style puts pres­sure on the oth­er bats­men in the team.

The 72-year-old Gabriel, who played 11 One Day In­ter­na­tion­als for the West In­dies in 1984, said even though Brath­waite is a vet­er­an of 98 Tests, there were ar­eas of his game that need­ed ad­dress­ing.

Speak­ing dur­ing an in­ter­view on I95.5 FM re­cent­ly, Gabriel said the Bar­ba­di­an, who has scored 12 Test cen­turies and 31 half-cen­turies at an av­er­age of 33.15, was get­ting bowled much too of­ten for an open­ing bats­man.

“What has kind of de­terred me from look­ing at crick­et is when I see how Kraigg Brath­waite, af­ter play­ing near­ly 100 Tests, still does not know where his off stump is and get­ting bowled down con­sis­tent­ly.

“In the last 30 in­nings that he has bat­ted, he has been bowled about 13 to 14 times and that does not hap­pen with a good open­ing bats­man,” Gabriel point­ed out.

He fur­ther con­tend­ed that Brath­waite’s slow style of bat­ting was al­so a cause for con­cern as it put con­stant pres­sure on the oth­er bats­men to score quick­ly.

“…You are the se­nior open­ing bat and every time you go out to bat you are mak­ing bat­ting look dif­fi­cult, and if you have to make 30 runs you have to take three hours to make it.

“So, when you’re go­ing in­to bat and you’re stay­ing that length of time to reach 10, you are putting pres­sure on the mid­dle or­der bats­men,” Gabriel said.

“When you are an open­ing bat and you get off the mark and you face two to three overs, you are sup­posed to dom­i­nate and at no time does he dom­i­nate, so that is why the West In­di­an bat­ting team is al­ways un­der pres­sure be­cause he will bat long, but how much will he score be­cause he bat­ting too slow.”

CMC