Curtly Ambrose: “We need to get back quick, bouncy pitches in the Caribbean”

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Curtly Ambrose has said that the West Indies have to change their “terrible” pitches if the national team’s fortunes are to change.

The legendary pace bowler’s comments come after the West Indies’ disastrous tour of New Zealand, where they failed to win a single game.

The men from the Caribbean were whitewashed 2-0 in the Test series and suffered the same fate in the three-match ODI series that followed. However, they lost the two-match Twenty20 series 1-0 as the second game was washed out due to heavy rain.

“It is too painful to watch,” Ambrose, who used to be the West Indies’ bowling coach, told the Trinidad & Tobago Guardian. “It’s been a disastrous tour and nothing really went well. I’m just hoping that the players and the coaching staff can go back to the drawing board, do some soul searching and figure out a way to start winning.

“It is not so much about coaching, in my opinion, because the guys have got the skills. We just need the coaching staff to instil certain discipline, and passion and pride and commitment in order to get results.”

Ambrose reminisced how pitches in the Caribbean used have something in it for everyone, which resulted in an even contest between bat and ball.

“We need to get back to the days when we were the best team in the world where we had good cricket pitches, where there is a little bit in it for the fast-bowlers, a bit for the spinners and if you’re a good enough batsman, you can score runs,” he said.

“The pitches in the Caribbean are terrible, and that’s why when we go overseas and the pitches are bouncing, the players are all at sea. We need to get back quick, bouncy pitches in the Caribbean. It will make better players and fast bowlers.”