SHAR­JAH – Open­er Bran­don King says he has bought in­to the “ex­cit­ing ideas” put for­ward by the new white-ball man­age­ment team head­ed by Dar­ren Sam­my, and be­lieves the out­look for the side is a bright one.

The 28-year-old struck a run-a-ball 112 as West In­dies beat Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates by sev­en wick­ets in the open­ing One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al of the three-match se­ries in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates on Sun­day (June 4).

King said the re­cent changes in the man­age­ment unit had re­sult­ed in new per­spec­tives in the West In­dies ap­proach.

“Change some­times can be good, it can be bad. I think it de­pends on how you look at it,” the Ja­maican said.

“It’s a fresh start and they’ve brought some ex­cit­ing ideas and ways in which we want to play the game, and I’m very much on board with that.

“So it’s look­ing very pos­i­tive for the fu­ture and hope­ful­ly we can con­tin­ue play­ing in the way we start­ed in this first game.”

Sam­my, a two-time T20 World Cup-win­ning cap­tain, was ap­point­ed head coach last month, fill­ing the po­si­tion left va­cant fol­low­ing Phil Sim­mons’s res­ig­na­tion last No­vem­ber.

The 39-year-old Sam­my was joined by a sup­port staff com­pris­ing for­mer West In­dies cap­tain Carl Hoop­er, for­mer West In­dies head coach Floyd Reifer and for­mer New Zealand all-rounder James Franklin.

“The at­mos­phere is very good. We’re build­ing to­wards some­thing. I think this group has a lot to of­fer, even com­ing from the last se­ries that we played in South Africa,” King said.

“We are play­ing re­al­ly well to­geth­er and we gel re­al­ly well and the camp is very pos­i­tive.

“We have new staff as well that are bring­ing a lot of pos­i­tive en­er­gy to­wards the game so I am very ex­cit­ed to be among this group right now.”

King’s hun­dred came in his 23rd ODI and in­clud­ed a dozen fours and four six­es. His first fifty re­quired 74 balls but his sec­ond fifty was quick­er, need­ing on­ly 33 balls.

His pre­vi­ous best score in ODIs had been an un­beat­en 91 against the Nether­lands a year ago and hav­ing now reached three fig­ures, King said he was hop­ing more such scores fol­lowed.

“I’m very re­lieved. I’m just hap­py I could get it in a win­ning cause. I’m ex­cit­ed to push on and hope­ful­ly get a few more but I’m very hap­py to have done it,” King said.

“It must be my best [in­nings] be­cause it’s my first cen­tu­ry in the for­mat, so I would def­i­nite­ly rate it as the best. I am hop­ing to get even bet­ter ones in the fu­ture but for now this is the best.”

He con­tin­ued: “The pitch here is tra­di­tion­al­ly slow and low so the bowlers know they have to bowl wick­et to wick­et to make it dif­fi­cult for the bats­men.

“I think the to­tal (203) we were chas­ing – the bowlers did a good job so the chase wasn’t a high pres­sure sit­u­a­tion. You could bat nor­mal­ly and wait for the bat balls and keep tick­ing it over.”

West In­dies face UAE in the sec­ond ODI on Tues­day (June 6).

CMC