Blackwood aims for improvement with tips from Kohli, Russell

West Indies vice-captain Jermaine Blackwood feels that mental preparation to handle spin will be the key to success in the upcoming two-match Test series.
West Indies are desperate to regain some pride in the Test series, scheduled to start at Chattogram from February 3, following their losses in the white-ball games.
“These types of surfaces are very slow. So I have to [be prepared] mentally, because technically I can’t do too much work right now. But mentally I know it is going to be very slow and it will spin. Once mentally I am ready, I am good. Then everything takes care of itself,” said Blackwood.
”I am batting very good in the nets, so I am just looking forward to transfer that in the middle. I can’t really wait to just go out there and play some cricket. I have been in Bangladesh for a while now so I am just eager to go out and play some cricket,” he added.
Blackwood also revealed that his batting changed following a small conversation with Virat Kohli and about the method to get big runs.
“I don’t really have a lot of conversations with international players. I talked to Virat Kohli a few times as well, on social media. The last time India toured the Caribbean, I had a chance to talk to him in Jamaica when I was there subbing. So after the game, I just had a small conversation. I asked him about how all the time that I have a lot of half-centuries and one century. He just said, what will you do when you score a century, how many deliveries did you face? I said I faced 212 balls. He said, that’s it, once you can bat some balls, you’re gonna score runs,” said Blackwood.
”So, I took a big thing from that. After that conversation, I tell myself that once I can bat over 200 or 300 balls, the way I bat, I can score runs regardless of who I am playing against or where I am playing,” he said, adding that Andre Russell had echoed the same sentiment.
“Me and Russell did a lot of talking. We are very close. I need to improve in kicking on and getting more hundreds. We mostly talk about my shot selections. When I started playing for West Indies, I was young and excited. My style of batting was to play a lot of shots and put the bowlers under pressure,” he said.
“What I learned was that you can’t make a hundred in an over or two. You have to spend hours at the crease. I did a lot of talking with Russell, and he gave me a lot of pointers on what I needed to do. Not because just T20s. He only played one Test match, but he is a guy who knows his cricket,” he added.
Blackwood added that he is confident that they can give the host a run for their money.
“I am not really going to change my role. For the last two series, I have been scoring runs. My goal is to continue to score runs, and just to win some more games for the team. I think this unit is a good one. I can see the hunger. We have been training very hard for the past couple of weeks. I can see that we are trying new things, and they are working pretty well. I have full confidence in this batting unit to get the job done. John Campbell, Kraigg Brathwaite, young Moseley, myself and Josh is, I think, a decent line-up. Once we can stick to our gameplan, I don’t see no way we can’t post some good totals.