West Indies head coach Daren Sammy has criticized the pitches used in the USA leg of the ICC T20 World Cup 2024.

He also emphasized the importance of introducing the sport to new audiences.

“Looking at the pitches in the US, I would say I’d definitely don’t want to play on those pitches. It was challenging for all the batters. It was unpredictable. But look at the big picture, what I saw in USA was the World Cup attracted many new fans from a different region, which was encouraging, An event like this helps to broaden the horizons and globalize the sport,” stated Sammy to the press.

“We did not play there, USA sticked to their home turf and we did to ours. We have played there a couple of times, but it was important for us to stay here and bring out as many people to support and cheer for us,” he continued.

Sammy spoke about the loss against England at St. Lucia and told a loss does not mean that the campaign is over and looked forward to winning the remaining games.

“Disappointed with loss, but look there will one game or that one team which will defeat you in a tournament like this.

We accept the loss but not dwell on it. The entire coaching staff will come together and evaluate the game; where we went wrong and what areas to improve. We asked the people of St Lucia to come out in large numbers to support us, they did show up and I’m very thankful to them for their support,” he added.

“We were around 25 runs short. We could not execute our gameplan which was set, but we look forward on winning all our remaining matches to qualify for the next stage. Our focus now is on the next game against USA,” he further quoted.

West Indies will next face USA on 22nd June in Barbados.