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“In this format of the game, I always fancy myself batting higher and as early as possible to give myself that extra time to get set and take the game right down to the end [of the innings]”

West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo has announced that he is eager to be promoted up the batting order so that he can have more time to construct his innings.

Bravo has been in excellent form as of late and believes he can have a major impact if he is given the chance to come in earlier.

“In this format of the game, I always fancy myself batting higher and as early as possible to give myself that extra time to get set and take the game right down to the end [of the innings],” Bravo said. “Obviously, we have a lot of power-hitters in our line-up but my role is to hold the middle and help us lay a good foundation.”

Bravo added that he sees himself as more of a “stabiliser” and would rather leave all the big-hitting to Chris Gayle, Dwayne Smith, Marlon Samuels, captain Darren Sammy and Andre Russell.

Bravo also noted that the West Indies are in excellent form at the minute, especially since they beat both England and Sri Lanka in their World Twenty20 warm-up games.

“It’s good to win these practice games and we’re looking forward to Sunday [against India],” he said. “We left the Caribbean after winning the series against England with good momentum and after these warm-ups, we feel confident and reassured as these are the conditions we’ll be playing the big games in. We expect the conditions to be good for batting. It’s a bit on the slower side so try not to be predictable as a bowler.”

The all-rounder finished off by saying that the West Indies are going to have a tough time beating India, Pakistan and Australia, all of whom are in their group.

“Compared to the last World Cup, this one is harder as it is fewer games and we are in a tough group,” he said. “We still have most of our players [from 2012] and we’re not going to get ahead of ourselves. But we’re playing good cricket and once we continue to show this form, we’ll fancy our chances to defend the title. It might be the last World Cup for some of us in this format of the game.”