Hong Kong cricket coach Willis hails side’s ‘fantastic effort’ but says undisciplined bowling needs to be fixed
- Simon Willis watched his side win back-to-back tournaments ahead of their ACC Premier Cup in Nepal next month
- While impressed with the performances the new head coach saw some areas for improvement
Hong Kong’s cricketers certainly made a good first impression on new head coach Simon Willis, who hailed the “fantastic effort and attitude” shown during this month’s T20 and one-day internationals.
Willis’ first opportunity to see his new charges in action was during the T20 quadrangular tournament against Bahrain, Kuwait and Malaysia, which formed part of the team’s preparations for the ACC Premier Cup in April.
A 39-run win over Malaysia in the final of that competition was followed by a much tighter five-run victory over Kuwait in the final of the one-day tournament the week after, although some wayward bowling at the death almost proved costly.
That indiscipline was not an isolated incident and although Willis said the team’s focus while going unbeaten had him excited for the future, one of his short-term goals was to rectify the issues with the ball.
“We’ve got to become a more disciplined bowling unit and if you look at the games throughout the tournaments we bowled far too many extras in wides and no-balls,” Willis said.
“There’s an element of understanding there, because a lot of the seam bowling group hadn’t done much work prior to the tournament, but that’s an area we’ve got to look to get better.”
There is not much time for the likes of Ayush Shukla, Aizaz Khan and the rest of the attack to work on ironing out those kinks before the tournament in Kathmandu begins on April 18.