BAS­SETERRE, St Kitts – West In­dies se­nior women’s head coach Shane Deitz, em­pha­sized the sig­nif­i­cance of the up­com­ing Bangladesh se­ries, cit­ing it as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­fine team com­bi­na­tions and as­sess play­ers vy­ing for key po­si­tions.

His­to­ry will be made from Jan­u­ary 19-31 as the West In­dies Women host Bangladesh in their in­au­gur­al bi­lat­er­al white-ball se­ries in the Caribbean.

The high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed tour will fea­ture three CG Unit­ed One-Day In­ter­na­tion­als (ODIs) and three T20 In­ter­na­tion­als (T20Is), all tak­ing place at Warn­er Park in Bas­seterre, St Kitts.

This marks the first bi­lat­er­al se­ries for the West In­dies Women against Bangladesh as well as Bangladesh’s maid­en white-ball tour of the Caribbean.

Both teams will use the se­ries as vi­tal prepa­ra­tion for up­com­ing ICC events, where qual­i­fi­ca­tion and high-pres­sure per­for­mances will be key.

Emerg­ing tal­ents such as Cher­ry Ann Fras­er, Ner­is­sa Crafton, and Shabi­ka Gajn­abi will have op­por­tu­ni­ties to show­case their skills, with the West In­dies team keen to build depth and ver­sa­til­i­ty.

“It’s cru­cial to get some com­bi­na­tions go­ing. A few play­ers are play­ing for po­si­tions too, so we need them to put their hands up. There are great op­por­tu­ni­ties for play­ers here,” Deitz ex­plained.

The coach ac­knowl­edged the chal­lenges faced dur­ing their re­cent tour of In­dia but ex­pressed op­ti­mism about us­ing this se­ries to bounce back.

“We want the play­ers to per­form well un­der pres­sure, get some com­bi­na­tions with bat and ball hap­pen­ing, so we can take that mo­men­tum to the qual­i­fiers.”

Deitz high­light­ed spe­cif­ic ar­eas of im­prove­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in pow­er­play bat­ting and bowl­ing.

“We strug­gled a bit in In­dia, so that’s a big area we want to fo­cus on. We want to get off to a good start with both bat and ball and then dri­ve the game from there.”

CMC