Denesh Ramdin bemoans woeful Windies batting but says positives exist

Kingston (Jamaica), June 16 (IANS) Beleaguered skipper Denesh Ramdin has once again lamented the fragile West Indies batting which led to a heavy 277-run defeat in the second Test, and a 0-2 series loss to Australia.

Set a massive 392 for victory on Sunday, the West Indies were bowled out for a paltry 114, about 40 minutes after tea on the fourth day at Sabina Park. Resuming the day on 16 for two, they lost five wickets in the first session to plunge to 72 for seven at lunch, reports CMC.

"Everyone is disappointed. I believe we didn’t bat as well as we wanted to,” Ramdin said.“We had our plans of batting the first hour and taking it deep into that afternoon session and bat out the day and then come back and see how many runs we needed.

“But the Australians kept coming at us all the time and didn’t give us anything easy and losing those wickets put us under pressure.” The result came on the heels of a nine-wicket loss in the first Test at Windsor Park in Dominica where the West Indies also batted poorly.

They were dismissed for 148 in their first innings and collapsed in their second innings from a comfortable 181 for three, to 216 all out.

Ramdin said looking back at the series, there were several things West Indies could have done better. “There were a few bowling changes made when you look back at it, there were batters who got starts and didn’t carry on, myself not standing up with the bat as well and not being able to contribute lower down the order and some of our senior batters didn’t get off as we wanted to,” he pointed out.

“Each series we look for centuries from one of our top five batters and we didn’t get that so we need to go back to the drawing boards. They (Australia) have a good attack and they kept coming at us, we didn’t bat the amount of balls we wanted to and they took all their chances.”

Despite the overwhelming series defeat, Ramdin said there were positives to be taken from the experience.

“The way the youngsters stood up on the field, this experience against this top team will live with them for the rest of their lives and can only make them stronger,” he said.

“Jerome Taylor with six for 47 was fantastic, Devendra Bishoo’s [six for 80] in Dominica was great so we have some belief still in our team.”

He added: “We coped well at times, I wouldn’t say it was good throughout but we can improve as a team so hopefully we learn from this experience and go from strength to strength.

“We were up against one of the best all-round teams in the world and we didn’t do it as consistently as we wanted to so we would like to take this moving forward to the next series.”