Seniors will have to bat responsibly: Sarwan

New Delhi—In-form batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan said Monday that senior West Indies players like captain Brian Lara will have to show the way to the inexperienced during the Champions Trophy starting Saturday.
"Since not too many West Indies players have played here in India before, so it's the responsibility of the senior players who have played here earlier to help the younger players," Sarwan said in an open session with the West Indies team.
"But the conditions here are not going to be too much different from Malaysia, weather wise because it's going to be humid, I think," said one of the mainstays of West Indies batting who has played 107 one-day internationals.
Defending champions West Indies open their campaign with a match against Zimbabwe in a qualifying round match at Ahmedabad Oct 8.
West Indies will also have to contend with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the eight-day qualifying tournament, after which the top teams join the six other automatic qualifiers - Australia, India, Pakistan, South Africa, New Zealand and England. The final will be played in Mumbai on Nov 5.
West Indies is coming straight from Kuala Lumpur where it stayed back after taking part in the DLF Cup triangular series in which it finished second after losing to Australia in the final. India was the third team.
Sarwan, who bats at No. 3 or 4, has been in tremendous form since February. He has an enviable sequence of scores in ODIs: 56, 14, 65, 42, 14, 55, 40, did not bat, 54, 92, 2, 98 not out, 115 not out, 6, 52, 22, 37 not out, 25, 2 and 36.
Although he might not have crossed 37 in the Kuala Lumpur triangular series, he was one of the successes when India toured the West Indies in the summer.
After that series West Indies had a break of more than three months, which allowed the players to relax and recharge themselves.
"We haven't really had that much training back home and much games before we went to Malaysia. So we depended on the tournament in Malaysia to give us some sort of form leading into this tournament," said Sarwan.
The 26-year-old from Guyana is looking ahead to regaining his sublime form in India on batting oriented pitches.
"Pitches are going to be a little bit different, they will offer a lot more spin to the spinners and much more batting friendly," he said with a twinkle in his eyes.
Sarwan pointed that the middle order comprising Lara, Chris Gayle and Shivnarine Chanderpaul - not counting himself - will have to regain form quickly in India.
"Our middle order has not been performing that well. That's something that we have been working on. From that struggling lot, the one we can pick out is Chris Gayle who is in good form," he said.
"In Malaysia, the middle seemed to be coming together, so that's a plus for us."
Taking the names of Lara, Gayle and Chanderpaul, Sarwan said that they would be the key batsmen in the tournament.
"Then you have got young Fidel Edwards, Ian Bradshaw and Dwayne Bravo. So everyone has got a part to play. If we play as a team we will be better off," he said.
Sarwan conceded that West Indies being the defending champions would have pressure.
—Agencies