Beating England gives Windies fresh belief: Ramdin

Bridgetown, May 5: West Indies cricket captain Denesh Ramdin believes the drawn series against World No.3 England has injected a new level of confidence and belief into the Caribbean outfit.

The Windies bounced back from a heavy nine-wicket defeat in the second Test in Greda last week to stun England by five wickets inside three days in the third and fil Test here on Sunday, reports CMC.

Following the drawn first Test in Antigua, Sunday’s result left the series in a 1-1 stalemate.

“We have more belief in ourselves now that we can bat out a last day, that we can chase down scores on a last day and beat teams that are ranked higher than us, and if we show that commitment and belief, we can go out there and execute our plans,” Ramdin told reporters.

“We will take it one game at a time, put in our work in the nets and off the field, alyse the opposition and try and execute our plans as best as we can.

“Australia are coming up and they are a very tough team but we will try to play some good cricket and see what happens.”

The West Indies were written off before the start of the three-Test series, with in-coming England and Wales Cricket Board chairman (ECB) Colin Graves describing them as a “mediocre” side.

However, the Windies put aside their poor results on the previous tour of South Africa where they lost the three-Test series 0-2 to string together several strong performances against the English.

Ramdin said after the South Africa tour, the squad had prepared well and were hungry to do well.

“We played some good cricket in South Africa but didn’t see the results there but we came back home to our conditions and worked on our game,” the gloveman pointed out.

“We had a new head coach (Phil Simmons) and we worked really hard for the last four weeks. I’ve never seen a team work and push themselves so hard and want success.

“All of the young guys who have been coming through have been pushing themselves to do well. It’s going to be hard in the next series but we’re up for it.” IANS