Working with Sir Garry helped: Bravo

Having spent some period of time with Sir Garry Sobers during the West Indies training camp, middle order batsman, Darren Bravo remarked that the legend put him at ease mentally and also imparted valuable advise, something that the middle order batsman wants to make use of in the upcoming home series against New Zealand. The three Test series begins on Sunday with Kingston, Jamaica hosting the first Test.

Bravo was the big winner at the West Indies Cricket board (WICB) and West Indies Players Association (WIPA) awards ceremony on Thursday night at Jamaica. He took home the Caribbean T20 Most Valuable Player award (MVP) as well as the prestigious 'Cricketer of the Year' award.

Other big winners included Stafanie Taylor (Women Cricketer of the Year), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (Test Cricketer of the Year), Dwayne Bravo (ODI Cricketer of the Year) and Sunil Narine (T20 Cricketer of the Year).

Chanderpaul was also honoured for having become the first West Indian cricketer to play in 150 Tests, while Chris Gayle, who is set to play his 100th Test at Kingston was also awarded.

Speaking about the time spent with Sobers, Bravo said: "It is something I will cherish for the rest of my life and when he left the camp to go to England, I really started missing him. Obviously he made my mind more at ease and that is something I am grateful for, Bravo added.

"He singled out that I should be able to play all around the wicket because at times the opposition might block up your strong area and those same deliveries you would not be able to score through your strong area, you can probably hit through midwicket. You have to set your field for yourself rather than letting the opposition dictate your pace, so that is something I will be looking to do in this series, he added.

Echoing the thoughts of his team-mate, Marlon Samuels, Bravo also stressed on the need to be consistent with the bat as well as the ball. "The bowling has been doing well over the last couple of years (but) we don't normally bat well twice in the Test match and that is something we have to look close at. We tend to get a decent score in the first innings and falter in the second or the other way around, so that is something we need to rectify if we have to do well in this series, he said.

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