Former West Indies batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan has accepted Cricket West Indies’ offer to come on board as a mentor for the team’s tri-nations ODI series in Ireland, and subsequently the World Cup in England.
The 38-year-old Sarwan, who played 87 Tests, 181 ODIs and 18 Twenty20 Internationals between 2000 and 2013, joins with immediate effect and will spend the remaining week working with the team with the specific view of helping the batsmen improve their defensive technique.
On being given the opportunity to work with the team, an “overwhelmed” Sarwan said, “I am very excited to be here. When I received the call, I was very overwhelmed at being asked to assist West Indies cricket again. I am really grateful for the opportunity and I am looking forward to sharing my knowledge with the players, even though it will just be a few days, and hoping it will help them in some way or other.
“I have come here to act as kind of a mentor to the players and try my best to assist them in any technical ways and with any shortcomings where I think they can improve, and to offer as much help to the head coach, Floyd Reifer, and his coaching staff,” Sarwan told Cricket West Indies.
“I know our batsmen have struggled in the past with rotating the strike, so I am trying to see how best we can get them to improve in this area,” he said. “It’s not an overnight fix, but it’s important to share ideas with them, so that they have something to build on.”
Windies coach Reifer also welcomed Sarwan’s inclusion in the set-up to work with the batsmen. “It was very important to have him here,” he said. “Sarwan was a player that was outstanding for West Indies. A very good batsman. A very good ‘finisher’ in limited-overs matches.
“We thought that a guy like Sarwan, coming into the camp with us whilst planning for the World Cup, would bring a wealth of knowledge.
“We are hoping he can help the batsmen get a better understanding of how to finish games, the mindset, how to approach batting first, how to approach batting last, so we thought that kind of knowledge was very important to share. He fitted in very well. He did a lot of talking and a lot of work with the batsmen.”
