Arthurton confident ahead of CLICO U15 semis

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – West Indies coach Keith Arthurton is talking positively ahead of his side’s semi-final clash with Malaysia Thursday in the league championship phase of the CLICO International Under-15 cricket tournament.

West Indies rushed to a 3-0 record with a lopsided 10-wicket triumph over Kenya on Tuesday at Queen’s Park Oval and Arthurton and his boys are anxious to step past their Asian opponents to go to the final.

“We are looking forward to going into the semi-final stage now,” Arthurton said after Tuesday’s flawless win.

The Windies had crushed Malaysia by 146 runs in the opening game of the Knockout competition two weekends ago and Arthurton -- without being smug – hinted that he had no worries about the Caribbean side getting past them again.

“We have an idea what they are like so we are looking forward to playing them in Grenada,” said Arthurton, a former West Indies batsman.

Set just 87 runs to beat Kenya on Tuesday, West Indies coasted to a facile victory with prolific openers John Campbell and Kraigg Brathwaite completing the job themselves, with innings of 43 not out and 37 not out, respectively.

Both have scored hundreds so far in the series and Arthurton believes they can shoulder the responsibility of taking the team through to championship success.

“There is always going to be high expectations from these guys, they are the two openers and we expect them to give us a very good start. It’s important that they do so, so it makes it a lot easier for the other players to come.”

But the 43-year-old Arthurton does not believe the batting strength in the team resides only with Brathwaite and Campbell.

He thinks there are others capable of rising to the occasion.

“There are other players who have been doing well, not as consistent as the openers but they are doing well and they have the potential to put it all together,” said Arthurton, who played 33 Tests and 105 One Day Internationals for West Indies between 1988 and 1999.

After their opening match win in the knockout, West Indies also beat the Americas before a stinging loss by two runs to Pakistan in the final in St Kitts.

West Indies and Pakistan are another collision course for the Championship title after both registered smart wins in the group stage.

West Indies beat Bangladesh by 37 runs last Saturday before strolling past Ireland (by 103 runs) and Kenya.

Pakistan will meet Bangladesh in Thursday’s other semi-final and Arthurton is anticipating a rematch with the knockout champions in the final, hopefully with a different result.

“They (Pakistan) are a pretty good team, they have two good spinners, one Abdul Qadir’s son (Usman Qadir) and a left-arm chinaman googly bowler (Ahsan Mirza), I think those are the two trump cards in the team that will make the difference in whether they win or lose

“We have our plan and we are trying to make sure that we execute our plan to the best of our ability,” Arthurton said.