Simmons disappointed four-day game was not scheduled

West Indies coach Phil Simmons has said he asked for a four-day tour match during the team's long break between the Hobart and Melbourne Tests, but they had to settle for a two-day fixture against a second-string Victoria XI in Geelong. The match ended in a predictable draw on Sunday and the West Indians did not even get a full day in the field, with rain washing out the final session.

On the first day their batsmen put on 8 for 303, with half-centuries to Kraigg Brathwaite and Jermaine Blackwood, but the Victorian attack did not boast a single player with first-class experience. The two-day game was West Indies' only match in what has become a 14-day break between Tests, given that the first Test in Hobart finished in only three days.

"I would love it to have been a four-day game," Simmons told reporters in Geelong after the game. "Twelve or something days in between two Test matches with a two-day game is not ideal. That's what it's ended up as. I would love to have had a four-day game where we could bowl properly and have a proper game, like we did up in Brisbane. That's what I would have been happy with.

"When I saw the amount of days in between I asked that we have at least a four-day game. When the last MOU (memorandum of understanding) came back it ended up a two-day game. I guess the details of that would have to come from back home."

Only two members of Victoria's team - Travis Dean and Aaron Ayre - have played first-class cricket, and both made their debuts this summer. The timing of the match, while the Big Bash League is in its first week, meant that most of the frontline Victorian players were unavailable, and West Indies had no choice but to make do against a weaker Victorian side.

"I would have loved a first team but the Big Bash has just stated so it was always going to be hard," Simmons said. "You'd always prefer to get better games. When people come to us now ... our A team will always play the visiting team and that's the sort of competition I would like when we go outside the West Indies."

The absence of any first-class bowlers in the Victorian line-up meant that it was hard to judge the quality of the West Indian batting performance, including the 45 from 39 balls scored by Marlon Samuels. After failing in the Hobart Test, Samuels faced some criticism as one of the most senior members of the side, but Simmons said he was confident Samuels would kick on when he got a start.

"When you look at the 45 he got, most of them were gifts," Simmons said. "As I look at it he still hasn't got a proper start yet. That's what I need him to get. If he gets a proper start I think he will go on to get a big score. It's just getting the start."