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On the eve of the do-or-die match against the West Indies at the World Twenty20, Andrew White gave us thoughts from the camp in Colombo and spoke about tummy bugs and not being overwhelmed by the biggest stage.
Today’s match is our biggest of the tournament and as everyone is aware by now, it’s do or die. Cricket is such a mental game and it’s important that you are prepared mentally when it comes to a huge game like this.

It’s something I’ve got used to over the years – not being overwhelmed by the big occasion. In one way the bigger the game, the more prepared you feel. The way I see it, all the work’s been done by the time the game comes around. We’ve done all our homework, plans have been made and the confidence is there that if we execute those plans, we can win against West Indies.

There has been a lot of sickness in the camp the last few days. A couple of days ago, everyone went to bed okay and the next morning I was asked was I feeling alright, which I thought was a bit strange. But it transpired that a few of the lads had fallen ill overnight and they were checking was anyone else getting sick as well.

It was pretty bad, we only had 10 people going training yesterday and then Stuart Thompson went down in the middle of the session as well – the only consolation was that people were sick the day before the match and not the day of. These things normally have a running time of 24 hours, so hopefully the guys will be ok for the match. Roy (Torrens, team manager) was at his best again getting the medical kit out and sorting everyone out.

At this stage in any tournament the novelty of being away starts to wear off. You obviously have the family at home who you miss but at the same time the further into a tournament you go, the more important the matches and the higher the stakes. If we win this game, the matches are only going to get more important in the Super Eights.

My routine before a game is very important for my preparation. I like to have everything ready the night before so my mind is at ease and I know things are ready to go. If it’s a morning game I’ll get down to breakfast early as well. I like to take my time so I’m happy that we arrive at the ground in plenty of time, that way I can soak up some of the atmosphere before the match.

There’s been some criticism of how long our warm-up was before the Australia game. It probably seemed longer than it was because we were out on the pitch for photographs 15 minutes before warm-up was due to start. The warm-up itself takes 38 minutes which is actually shorter than it would be at home.

Our strength and conditioning coach Brendan Connor and physio Kieran O’Reilly are professionals and they know their stuff so I think something has been made out of nothing really. Everyone has their things they need to get done before a match and if the players thought anything was wrong with the preparation before a game, they’d give feedback and it would be sorted.

The mood in the camp right now is confident but realistic. We have played against the Windies in a lot of big tournaments now and we know what they bring. They have players that fly around the world playing in T20 tournaments, but we also know that we have match winners in our team. It’s about executing the game plan and if we do our jobs right and can disrupt theirs, we know it’s anyone’s game. We’re not stupid, we know it’s a huge challenge but hopefully we’re up to it.

By this stage of the ICC World Twenty20 most of the prep work has been done. We had a light training session yesterday, well, those of us who were able to get out of bed! We got back to the hotel at about 11 and rested up for the rest of the day. When we get time off I like to float around, knock in to other people’s rooms, interrupt their down time and chat with the guys. I hang around with Cusy (Alex Cusack) and Jonesy (Nigel Jones) a lot and I just fill my time with heading to the shops and going on the internet to skype my wife and check up on our nine-month old and see that everything is going okay at home.

It’s really a waiting game, waiting to get out on that big stage again tonight and, hopefully, come 11 o’clock tonight, waiting for the next stage of the competition.

Andrew White
I feel our preparation has been perfect © Cricket Ireland/Barry Chambers
[352] Andrew White – white-andrew
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