IT WAS BATTING lacking common sense!An angry West Indies coach Ottis Gibson on Friday evening chided his batsmen for letting the team down with a poor display of batting.Chasing a hardly daunting South African total of 224, the West Indies folded for a meagre 157 to lose by 67 runs, allowing South Africa to take a winning 3-0 lead in the five-match Digicel One-Day International cricket series.“It is pretty obvious, we didn’t bat very well. We batted quite poorly, to be honest,” Gibson told reporters in a post-match Press conference at the Windsor Park Sports Complex.Bowlers laudedWhile berating the batsmen for not showing the necessary level-headedness, Gibson lauded the bowlers for dismissing South Africa.“I thought we bowled very well today to restrict them to 224 in a game we needed to win to keep ourselves in the series. “I thought that was a really good performance from the bowlers, and then obviously, as we’ve seen throughout most of the games in the series so far, we have been let down badly again by our batters.“All it required was some common sense batting; and we are not displaying any common sense when we walk to the wicket,” the coach lamented.Sensible batting“The reality is that, chasing 224, we didn’t need any heroics. We just needed some sensible batting; and we didn’t get sensible batting,” he contended.Gibson said that the plan was to build the innings around the experienced Shivnarine Chanderpaul.“We’ve seen in the past where Shiv takes 40 balls over 20 runs but if Shiv bats for 50 overs, he will catch up with runs. If he bats 50 overs and makes a hundred for the team and the other guys around him play sensibly, we will get the 224.“That was the sort of thinking. Obviously, Shiv got out and we saw [that] everybody got out.”But the coach ruled out wholesale changes, noting that the final XI for today’s fourth ODI, at the same venue, will be chosen from the 15-member squad.He said that diminutive batsman Travis Dowlin, who just had a reasonable tour of Bangladesh, captaining the “A” Team, was due to join the team last night.“We could see another change in the batting order, but at the end of the day there are 15 people here in the squad and that’s the 15 people we have to choose from,” Gibson said.“Whether we change again or not, it still boils down to the batsmen that are here taking responsibility, which they are not doing.”
