Rain spoiled WI party: Sammy
West Indies captain Darren Sammy said his team firmly believed they could have knocked down the target if rain hadn’t intervened.
“We believed we had a chance of getting the target. The coach outlined the stages, and by tea we had 15 overs left and we were right on target. But we lost more wickets than we anticipated in the initial stages of our second innings,” Sammy said.
“We decoded to bat as long as possible and play normal cricket. We have batsmen who can score runs. We have boundary hitters. So, by 15 overs to go if we needed 90 runs or so with 7 batsmen left, we could get to the target. But we don’t have control over weather,” he said.
The St Lucia all-rounder said the batsmen needed to put some more runs on the board to challenge India more meaningfully. “We believe so, but we have to score more runs. We restrict them to low totals but they restrict us to lower totals. Had we scored 350 in the first innings, we could have a lead of 150, and it could have been a different ball game. We faltered in Jamaica first innings and we did it here again. We had a few more positives – the bowlers did well again.”
However, Sammy picked Marlon Samuels, Darren Bravo and Carlton Baugh for special praise. “We could do much better, but at least we saw guys taking little bit of responsibility and put some runs for us. Samuels’ innings was very good. He batted for a long time and had a long alliance with Shiv. Bravo and Baugh batted well in the second innings. We still have a lot of room for improvement. We are not getting 300 runs on board. If we can get those runs, we can put pressure on India,” Sammy said.
Sammy supported the struggling Ramnaresh Sarwan. “We all know Sarwan is going through a lean patch right now. He is one of our more experienced batsmen. We have been supporting him. At the end of the day the selectors have a job to do. I don’t know whether any changes will be made. Sars is a classy player. He has played at three in his career. May be we can consider pushing him down since he is not in form.”
Sammy hoped they will get to play on a bouncy pitch in Dominica, venue for the third Test. “Once we have a lively track, we have the Indian top order under pressure. Dominica has bounce and pace. We will have to wait and see how it plays.”
