Pleased with team progress

Shivnarine Chanderpaul receives his Man of the Series award from WICB President Dr. Julian Hunte - (Brooks La Touche Photograph)

MONDAY JUNE 16 – BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – West Indies captain Chris

Gayle is proud of the way his side fought against the world champion Australia

during the Digicel Test Series, which the visitors won 2-0 after their 87 run win in

the Third Digicel Test at the Kensington Oval.

“I think we played good cricket throughout the (Digicel Test) Series but

unfortunately we came out on the losing side,” Gayle told commentator and

cricket writer Tony Cozier in the post game presentation ceremony.

“It was a good game today, I can’t fault the guys for the effort they put in,

(having scored) 387 runs (in the second innings) was pretty good but

unfortunately we lost,” said the 27-year-old left-hander, who missed the first

two Digicel Tests due to a long standing groin injury.

In his absence the home side was led by vice captain Ramnaresh Sarwan. After

losing at Sabina Park in Jamaica the West Indies drew in Antigua.

Chris Gayle drives powerfully through the off side - (Brooks La Touche Photography)

Asked by Cozier whether the team had genuine belief that they could have

achieved the 240 runs needed on the final day to pull off an historic and

improbable win, Gayle said they had planned for victory and were not settling for

a draw.

“Yeah, definitely, but we knew that it (beating Australia in the Final Digicel Test)

was not going to be easy. Someone had to get a big hundred which we didn’t

get in this game,” said Gayle who made scores of 14 and 26 in the match.

“Partnerships (were) key in this innings, once we batted out the day we knew

we would get the runs (475 to win) but this didn’t happen today,” Gayle

observed.

Asked whether from the captain’s perspective, the improvement seen on the field

has been satisfactory, he replied that he had no qualms with the pace of the

progress shown by the players.

“The guys are really enjoying their cricket, they have become more mature so

hopefully we can continue in the same vein in the (Digicel) One Day Series,” the

captain said.

In addition, he went on to point out the players selected for the upcoming Digicel

International Twenty20 match, the first of its kind in the Caribbean are geed up

and looking forward to the challenge.

“We’re looking forward to it and it is for us to play good competitive cricket

against the number one team in the world,” Gayle said.

He also hinted that some new players were selected in the yet to be released

squad.

“We have some new faces, it’s going to be interesting, we’re looking for players

to be in the international level and try and capitalize on whatever chances they

get to play against the number one team in the world,” Gayle said. 

(COURTESY-: digicelcricket.com)