After losing the fifth and final T20I to India by 88 runs, West Indies head coach Phil Simmons stated that consistency in batting and understanding the situations in the game are badly needed for his batters ahead of Men's T20 World Cup in Australia in October-November.
In the back-to-back T20Is at Florida on Saturday and Sunday, West Indies batting never seemed to be in the hunt of chasing scores of 192 and 189 respectively and were skittled out for 132 and 100 in the successive T20Is, losing series 4-1.
"I think the major lesson is that we gave away our wickets a little bit too cheaply. And if we continue to bat (deep), we will be up there with the run rate, but we keep losing too many wickets and that's the main lesson we have got to learn from this series.
The main thing is we need to bat in a format," said Simmons in the post-match press conference.Simmons further elaborated on what he wants to see from West Indies batting in T20Is in future. "We need to be able to bat for the six overs (of the powerplay) and know how we are batting in that.
We need to stop losing wickets and once we stop losing wickets, we're going to make big scores.""We have the players - Hetty (Hetmyer) showed he is back to form, we have Rovman (Powell), we have (Nicholas) Pooran, who has done a little bit as we went on in the series, but nobody has been consistent throughout the series.
So, I think that is what we need now - consistency and understanding the situation of the game and knowing how we play that."Simmons further admitted that West Indies are yet to zero on their personnel for the Men's T20 World Cup.
Before announcing their World Cup squad, where they are slotted in round one alongside Zimbabwe, Scotland and Ireland in Group B, West Indies have three T20Is against New Zealand in Jamaica, starting from August 11.
"It's difficult. But I think we have three more matches (against New Zealand). After that we will sit down and make decisions as to who fits into the way we want to play. I think the three matches will be important for a lot of players as well as some players who will be rested.
But, in general, after that we will have to make a decision."Simmons signed off by saying that West Indies will have to put in collective efforts with bat and ball in order to challenge the big teams in T20I cricket.
"It's always going to be difficult playing against India. It's the best T20 team in the world - man for man. But we showed in glimpses that we are capable of competing - sometimes with the ball and sometimes with the bat."
"But probably, we never put everything together. That's the lesson we are going to take from this. We have to put everything together on the day to beat the top teams."