FORMER West Indies fast bowler and current cricket commentator Ian Bishop says the regional side still have some things to improve on despite winning their opening two matches of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

The Windies survived a potential upset in their first match against Papua New Guinea, winning by five wickets with an over to spare. However, they put in a more commanding performance against Uganda last Saturday at Providence Stadium in Guyana with a 134-run win, after bowling out their opponents for a mere 39.

Though impressed with the team’s approach to the match, Bishop believes scoring is an issue that needs addressing.

“I saw a West Indies team that turned up to do their business— which is the first compliment I’ll pay them. They could have come in and be lackadaisical but that didn’t happen. There was a lot more intent in the stroke play positivity, and then Andre Russell’s final kick towards the end of the innings is what we’ve seen from [him], particulary over the last two months of the IPL,” said Bishop.

“There’s still room for improvement even though on a tricky pitch there was still 53 dot balls — which was one less than the game against PNG. So when the boundary ball isn’t there, there’s still room to manipulate [the] ball into gaps and supplement your scoring but they should find it more friendly when they get on to better batting surfaces,” he said.

Bishop was impressed by the performance of Akeal Hosein who took 5 for 11, his best bowling performance and the second-best bowling figures in West Indies T20 history.

“Akeal was very good. It was a pitch that had its fair share of challenges in terms of its low bounce, and if you’ve never faced [him] before it’s along similar veins that you see with someone like Wasim for Pakistan with the new ball — that arm ball that swings back in. And then Akeal has the option of really imparting a lot of spin on the ball — even the new ball — and getting it to turn away from the right-handers so I thought, all-in-all, his length was good and his line was complimentary. And it was great for him because, so far in 2024, he hadn’t been having his best year so it was a real morale booster for him,” he said.

However, he says Hosein and the rest of the bowlers may not see the same type of success when they take on New Zealand on Wednesday.

“It will be an interesting game because you’re talking about Taruba in south Trinidad, which should be a surface that is all the more amenable to batsmanship, [though] it’s not what I would call one of the highest-scoring surfaces in the Caribbean. But the pitch in Guyana, I have to admit I’m a little bit disappointed in the way that it’s played — very slow-gripping and hard-to-play shots on — so Trinidad should be better for batters. Someone like Akeal and the rest of the bowling group are going to have to lift their game a little bit more,” said Bishop.

Following the Uganda match West Indies captain, Jamaica’s Rovman Powell, said the team was operating between 70 to 80 per cent.

Though appreciating his honesty, Bishop says they will need to be at 100 per cent in the upcoming games.

“You need to score off more balls. Imagine when you go up against the better teams, Afghanistan and New Zealand, you will need all those resources. So I like that from Rovman, he’s being very realisitic, leaving room for his batters to improve — and they need to do that if they have to challenge for a final four spot and even beyond that. I’m okay with the six hitting [but] what I want to see is more done with the deliveries in-between the boundaries.”

Wednesday’s match against New Zealand bowls off at 7:30 pm, Jamaica time at Brian Lara Cricket Academy. The Windies are currently second in the group on four points, with Afghanistan leading on net run rate while New Zealand sit bottom with no points, although they’ve only played one match.