Brathwaite presses Windies to ‘dig deep’ after Lord’s debacle

LONDON (CMC):

WEST INDIES captain Kraigg Brathwaite urged his side to draw from their experience earlier this year in Australia to recover from a chastening defeat against England in the first Test of the Richards-Botham Trophy Series.

The Caribbean side plunged to an innings-and-114-run defeat on Friday at Lord’s after fellow pacer Gus Atkinson completed another memorable spell to end with 12 wickets in the match and propelled the hosts to a 1-0 lead in the three-Test series.

The visitors were badly let down by their batting in the match, being bowled out for paltry sums in both innings.

The West Indies scored 121 in the first innings after losing the toss on the first day of the match.

After England showed the skill West Indies lacked to pile up 371 in reply, West Indies were bowled out for 136 in their second innings a little under an hour before lunch on the third day.

“For me to the boys [the message] is generally: things will not always go as planned,” Brathwaite told reporters after the match.

“Also, we came to win the Test, and it didn’t happen. But [there are] still two Tests remaining in this series, and we still have six Tests remaining for the year, so it’s all a build-up.”

DIG DEEP

He added: “We can’t believe that because of this [England] win, we are out of it or anything. We’ve got to dig deep, we got to keep believing and keep stressing on it.

“It’s easy to give up. It’s easy to say, ‘well, I can’t get it done’, but we got to keep believing and keep supporting one another.”

No West Indies batsman got a half-century in the match, and none of them helped their cause with carelessness and ill-considered batting.

They also failed to bat 50 overs collectively in either innings – and Brathwaite conceded the batting left a lot to be desired.

“We disappointed ourselves with the bat,” he said. “Just over 100 runs batting first, you’re behind the game. With the bat, we didn’t come to the party at all in this game, and with the ball, we still could be better. But it’s a positive that we bowled them out.

“It has to be an all-round performance. The batters, including myself, have to come to the party and make West Indians proud.”

He said: “Batting first, you want to put runs on the board in the first innings especially. We know where we went wrong. We know where we can be better. My thing for the group is stay mentally tough. It’s Test cricket.

“You go through successful periods, you go through tough periods, but you just got to be strong and believe in your ability. You got to believe that something is around the corner. Just keep doing the right things. And everything will work out.”

There were not a lot of positives that the Caribbean side could take from the match, but bowling out England was a good start.

“We got 10 wickets,” he said. “We did bowl them out albeit [for] 50 to 60 runs too many. With the bat, we got three guys that got 20-odd, they batted for close to an hour, if not an hour. We caught decently as well.”

Brathwaite said it was not the first time his side had lost the first Test of a series, recalling the Tour of Australia in January. Still, he said the players will have to work extremely hard to rebound in the second Test, starting on Thursday at Trent Bridge in Nottingham.

“We’ve all had some bad memories, we’ve all had glimpses of doing great stuff on this level,” he said. “That’s what I call experience. That’s where experience comes in. Jason Holder has been great sharing his and I will continue to do it. As I said, we just got to dig deep down. Stay mentally tough.”