West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo, who made a u-turn on his T20I retirement in December last year to help West Indies retain their T20 World Cup title, believes that the current outfit is even better than the one that lifted the World T20 title in 2016.
Bravo especially pointed to the batting resources in the side, which he believed makes for one of the most intimidating line-ups in world cricket at the moment.
“In the last series in Sri Lanka, we had a team meeting, and coach Phil [Simmons] put the team down, the list, and he put it down in batting order, and he had my name down at No. 9,” Bravo told ESPNcricinfo. “And I said to the guys, I said listen, I don’t think I was ever involved in a T20 team when I am down to bat at No. 9.
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“I’m just in awe of our batting line-up, and I said to the guys, ‘listen, I think this team is actually better than our World-Cup-winning team’, and that is no joke, because at the end of the day, you have batting all the way down to No. 10.
“And imagine, Sunil Narine is not even in the team as yet. So just imagine, when Sunil comes into the team, Sunil will be batting at No. 10, or No. 11. He’s an opening batsman now in T20.
“So just imagine a full-strength West Indies team, everyone is on deck. As a bowler, you get Evin Lewis out, [Shimron] Hetmyer comes in. You get Hetmyer out, [Nicholas] Pooran comes in, you get Lendl Simmons out, [Andre] Russell comes in, you get Russell out, [Kieron] Pollard comes in, you get Pollard out, Rovman Powell comes in, and it keeps going, going, and then you reach the champion DJ Bravo.”
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Bravo went on to say that the abundance of resources in the batting department has left him to operate as a death-overs specialist – a role Bravo has increasingly taken on in franchise cricket over the last few years.
“It’s an intimidating team, it’s a team to intimidate the opposition, and that excites me,” he said. “So I will just do my part as a bowler, try to control the back end of the innings, especially closing off the innings with death bowling, which has been, in the past, a bit of a concern for us.
“You saw how Oshane Thomas did with his pace in Sri Lanka. Then you have Sheldon Cottrell, now a leader of the attack, Kesrick Williams on the bench, so things starting to look bright again, things starting to look good again.”
