BIRM­ING­HAM — West In­dies head coach Dar­ren Sam­my re­mained up­beat de­spite poor weath­er dis­rupt­ing his team’s prepa­ra­tions ahead of the first ODI against Eng­land on Thurs­day at Edg­bas­ton, Eng­land.

Forced in­doors for their net ses­sion on Tues­day, Sam­my em­pha­sised his team’s readi­ness to face the chal­lenges posed by Eng­land as they con­tin­ue their push to­wards au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the 2027 Crick­et World Cup.

“It’s al­ways a chal­lenge, Ire­land was a chal­lenge, Eng­land is a chal­lenge, every in­ter­na­tion­al team pos­es dif­fer­ent tests. For us, it’s about con­tin­u­ing to be­lieve, con­tin­u­ing to work hard. We hold the tro­phy from win­ning the se­ries at home, and now we’re fo­cused on im­prov­ing our away record. We have a team ca­pa­ble of do­ing that.”

With the West In­dies cur­rent­ly ranked ninth in the ODI stand­ings, just three points be­hind Eng­land, Sam­my stressed the im­por­tance of climb­ing the rank­ings to se­cure au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

“Ever since we start­ed this jour­ney, we’ve had 2027 in mind. Au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion is the first goal, and climb­ing the rank­ings is the on­ly way to do that. Every ODI from now un­til the qual­i­fi­ca­tion dead­line is cru­cial, and this se­ries is a big op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

Sam­my re­served spe­cial praise for the West In­dies’ mid­dle-or­der bat­ting, sin­gling out the rapid rise of Kea­cy Car­ty as a prime ex­am­ple of hard work pay­ing off.

“Our mid­dle or­der over the last year has been on par with the best in the world. Kea­cy Car­ty is proof that ded­i­ca­tion brings re­wards. The role we’ve giv­en him, he’s grabbed it and ex­celled. When you in­vest, you don’t al­ways ex­pect such high re­turns so quick­ly, but Casey has de­fied the odds.”

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that some play­ers are de­vel­op­ing faster than oth­ers, Sam­my ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the team’s up­ward tra­jec­to­ry. How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted that trans­lat­ing home suc­cess in­to away per­for­mances re­mains a hur­dle.

“We’ve strug­gled away from home in places like Sri Lan­ka, Aus­tralia, but in Ire­land, apart from that first 10 overs in the open­ing game, our bat­ting was sol­id. Now, we need to re­peat that here.”

Sam­my al­so high­light­ed the progress of young fast bowler Jay­den Seales, whose new-ball spells have been a bright spot.

“Our bowl­ing is im­prov­ing, es­pe­cial­ly Jay­den with that new ball. There’s healthy com­pe­ti­tion for places based on per­for­mance, which is ex­act­ly what we want.”

With rain threat­en­ing to play a part in the se­ries open­er, Sam­my re­mained prag­mat­ic. “We’re prepar­ing well with the con­di­tions we’re giv­en. Weath­er per­mit­ting, we’ll be ready.”

CMC