The lack of quality first-class cricket in the Caribbean has had a negative impact on the Test team and West Indies skipper Roston Chase wants the current crop of players to get a longer run so they can learn on the job.
Chase, the only man in the current squad with experience of more than 50 Tests (54), believes it would be foolhardy for anyone to compare players from the island nation's assortment to the likes of India, Australia or England, where Test debutants have sometimes played 80 first-class matches.
When asked if he would like to see the current crop get more matches along the way, the skipper was all for it.
“Yes, that would be great if we could obviously give some players a bit of a chance, so that they can learn on the job. Because when a lot of our players get to international level, they play about twenty first-class games, or fifteen first-class games.”
“While other teams, when guys come into international cricket, they have 80 first-class matches, 100 first-class matches. So for us, it's always learning on the job,” Chase said after his team lost the Test series 0-2 to India on Tuesday. “So if a guy can run a little bit longer so he can adapt and adjust to this level and see what it takes to improve and be consistent at this level, then I think that's good.”
West Indies, after three indifferent performances in their first three innings, fought hard and scored 390 in the second innings at Kotla, with hundreds from John Campbell and Shai Hope.
“I just think the fight we showed in the last game will, like I said, give us that belief and confidence to know that we have what it takes to perform at this level.
“But it's just consistently working hard, believing and working as a team.”
Chase admitted that a happy locker room is always a winning locker room.
“I think sometimes you don't really have that joy in the locker room because we're not really playing well. So it's not really fun to come out and be on the losing side.”
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“But once we can find the joy in continuing to play and working hard for each other, I think it will move the group forward.” Recently, the batters of the West Indies U-19 team came for a training program at the CSK Academy, and Chase welcomed such moves in the future.
“That would be great if our board could organize more training programs like that. But of course we know they keep saying and we know it's a little bit difficult for us to have everything in place. So we just have to work with what we have.
“But I think it's good that the boys can come here and get introduced to playing spin. Because I think we're a bit more comfortable playing fast bowling than good spin bowling.”
Published on October 14, 2025
