West Indies?captain Darren Sammy has warned Australia to expect more of his side’s fighting spirit when the three-Test Dogicel cricket series bowls off at Kensington Oval on Saturday.
He was speaking Friday after West Indies produced another sensational effort to beat the Aussies by 14 runs at Kensington Oval and tie the two-match Twenty20 series 1-1.
The performance was the latest show of resilience, a quality that came to the fore when they tied the preceding five-match One-Day International series 2-2.
“Two and two, one and one. I think one-all in the Test series would be a perfect result for the home series,” Sammy quipped.
“We now have the belief in the team that we can compete and win against top-ranked teams.
“We’re going to carry that same mentality towards the Tests. That’s what we’ve got to keep telling the boys; once we believe, we can achieve.
“We’re going to play fearless cricket when we’re at home. We intend to deliver.”
The skipper said the West Indies are not daunted by the reputation of Australia and will continue to match them stride for stride.
“From the start of the series, we all know how the Australians play and we decided from the time we went to India [last year] we were going to play fearless cricket and that’s the same thing we did in this competition,” Sammy noted.
“We’re going to stand up to them if they stand up to us.
“[We will] keep it clean but we will be very competitive and that’s what you’ve been seeing throughout this series, which is good as long as we don’t disrespect our opponents and keep it in the spirit of the game.
“It was very good to see our boys showing fight and heart out there.”
In the second and final T20 International, the West Indies collapsed from 110 for two to 160 all out as they lost their last eight wickets for 50 runs.
Australia were running away with the game at 64 for one in the eighth over until the Windies hit back strongly to restrict them to 146 for nine.
“It [morale] is very good. I think that’s what propelled us to perform – the team spirit, the never-say-die attitude, each man fighting for the man next to him. And that’s been the mantra of this unit and it’s good we got the result out there on the field,” Sammy said.
“We just lost wickets. [Dwayne] Smith and [Johnson] Charles gave us a good start. It’s been something that has been happening to us throughout the series that when we lose wickets we lose them in clusters and today [Friday] was no different.
“But the belief and character of the team has been shown. The bowlers backed the batsmen up . . . by defending that total.” (CMC/EZS)
