Cricinfo
Jermaine Blackwood to know what it’s like to bat deep into the fourth innings. His match-winning 95 during the Southampton Test against England last year put him in a category of cricketers who can withstand a different type of pressure: to win an overseas Test by batting beautifully in the fourth innings.
It hasn’t just been one innings for Blackwood recently though. He has been West Indies’ top run-getter in Test series in both England and New Zealand, having made 427 runs with a century and three fifties, averaging 42.70 in the combined five Tests. Not to forget, he is on the comeback trail.
“I think I have been out of the West Indies team for almost three years,” he said on his routines while being away from the national team.
“On the sidelines, I did some work on my mental space. I trained twice a day and hit the gym every day. I put in a lot of hard work to be as fit as possible. I tried to come back as strong as possible. You can see the results. I am better at my shot selection, I am starting to understand my game very well, [and] I want to continue to do the same going forward.”
In the only Test innings that he played during this long break - as a concussion sub for Darren Bravo against India in Kingston in 2019 - Blackwood picked the brains of India captain Virat Kohli, who advised him to focus on spending time at the crease, a dictum he has taken to heart.
“I talked to Virat Kohli a few times as well on social media. The last time India toured the Caribbean, I had a chance to talk to him in Jamaica when I was there subbing,” he said, “So after the game, I just had a small conversation. I asked him about how I have a lot of half-centuries and [only] one century. He just said, ‘What will you do when you score a century? How many deliveries did you face?’ I said I faced 212 balls.
“He said, ‘That’s it, once you can bat some balls, you’re going to score runs’. So I took a big thing from that. After that conversation, I tell myself that once I can bat over 200 or 300 balls, the way I bat, I can score runs regardless of who I am playing against or where I am playing.”
But without disturbing his own method, he now has to make a whole new set of adjustments for the slow and low pitches in Bangladesh, where the West Indies ODI side were whitewashed 3-0. Blackwood believes that the adjustment has to happen mentally first.
“These type of surfaces are very slow. So I have to [prepare] mentally, because technically I can’t do too much work right now,” he said about the Bangladesh pitches. “But mentally I know it is going to be very slow and it will spin. Once mentally I am ready, I am good. Then everything takes care of itself.
“I am batting very good in the nets, so I am just looking forward to transfer that in the middle. I can’t really wait to just go out there and play some cricket. I have been in Bangladesh for a while now so I am just eager to go out and play some cricket.”
