'All to gain and nothing to lose' – Devon Smith

When the Windies line up in Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain on Wednesday, 6 June, to take on Sri Lanka in the first of three Tests, walking out to open could be Devon Smith.

The 36-year-old left-hand batsman is in line to make his return to the national side after a hiatus of three years. He last played for the Windies in April 2015, turning out in the Test against England.

He is now looking to add to his 1593 runs from 38 Tests, and improve on a modest average of 24.5.

Smith, however, insists things will be different this time around. For one, he is coming to the series with the weight of 1095 runs at an average of 84.23 in the 2017-18 regional four-day season with Windward Islands Volcanoes. That included six hundreds. He was only the fourth batsman ever to make 1000-plus runs in the competition.

Second, he is a much calmer player, he says. Unlike before, he isn’t letting the expectations get to him. It’s “all to gain and nothing to lose”, he said.

“I just have to go there and play to the best of my ability,” Smith told presspersons on Monday. “Just go down and enjoy my cricket.

“Now I enjoy my cricket more than before, when I used to put much more pressure on myself – thinking about being dropped, if I was going to make runs, what was going to happen. [I’ll] put all that behind me, and just go out there and be positive.”

Ahead of the Test, he chose not to think too much about the Sri Lankans’ bowling strengths.

“Scoring runs is a matter of occupying the crease,” he said. “My thing is to occupy the crease and take it from there.

“When I get a good start, I carry on for as long as possible.”