The West Indies will take some mental scars to their second Test with Australia after their 379-run hammering in the opening Gabba Test in Brisbane on Sunday.
Pre-match optimism dissipated in the face of the same old inadequacies as the tourists capitulated for 129 in their second innings to suffer one of their heaviest defeats to Australia.
The West Indies have a three-day tour game against Victoria in Melbourne starting on Friday to come up with some answers. But such was the scale of the defeat, the tourists cannot look forward to Hobart with much confidence.
Once their out-of-form champion batsman Brian Lara fell for 14 soon after lunch a dramatic collapse began.
The West Indies lost their last nine wickets for 76 after their first innings 210 left them trailing by a massive 225 runs.
Captain Shivnarine Chanderpaul has the onerous task of restoring morale ahead of the second Test starting on November 17.
”It’s not fitness because we’ve been doing a lot of work, it’s a mental thing and we just need to get over it,” Chanderpaul said after the Gabba demolition.
”The bowlers are young and a little bit inexperienced, so it’s a case of remembering the basics and sticking with the plans.
”We need to stick to our bowling plans a little more. On the first day we put them in the right areas and got some wickets, but we fell off a bit.”
With the Australians celebrating noisily in the adjoining room, Chanderpaul told reporters: ”Hopefully, these things can change and we can get it right.”
”We need to pick ourselves up in the next game and keep our heads up, we can do it and just go out there and do it again.”
Chanderpaul acknowledged a brittleness in the batting, once he and senior players Brian Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle were dismissed.
”We had a good start in the first innings with a good total and then we just collapsed and in the second innings, it’s been a trend over the years, that we have always been collapsing without putting too many runs on the board.
”Everybody is disappointed with our performance, we know we can do better. For a good batting wicket like that our batting line-up should have put more runs on the board.”
One selection option could be the return of bowling all-rounder Dwayne Bravo, who batting was missed once the team’s tail was exposed.
The last four batsmen — Daren Powell, Fidel Edwards, Corey Collymore and Jermaine Lawson — totalled just 11 runs in the two innings.
”We’ll give everybody a chance to play in the tour match [against Victoria] and see what happens next and we can decide about the next Test,” Chanderpaul said. – Sapa-AFP