West Indies coach John Dyson hailed his side’s bowling late on the third day of the opening Test which sank Australia to 17 for four in their second innings on Saturday at Sabina Park.
But he urged the batsmen in the side to follow the example of long-standing left-hander Shivnarine Chanderpaul, whose 118 in the first innings led West Indies to 312, replying to the Aussies’ first innings total of 431.
New ball bowlers Fidel Edwards and Daren Powell bowled impressively to engineer an Australia top-order batting meltdown which brought a wry smile to Dyson’s face.
”We go out there to fight no matter what the situation of the match,” he said.
”When we went out to bowl, we discussed what it is we needed to do, how we were going to do it, and the two of them did it beautifully.
”There is some good team spirit. The players are enjoying their cricket more than they have for a long time and consequently we’re seeing them play some good cricket.
”[Getting rid of the Australian top order] was really pleasing, we could have folded, but we discussed what we needed to do and the guys just executed it perfectly.”
The bowling of Edwards and Powell followed Chanderpaul’s 18th Test century which Dyson acknowledged was the rock upon which West Indies were able to remain competitive.
”One of our main batsmen [Chanderpaul] played in a beautiful fashion and I want some of the less profile players to make contributions as well,” he said.
”Runako [Morton} today got a terrific 67 it would have been just fantastic if he had kept going and got a hundred, and the same with [Dwayne] Bravo, spectacular little innings to watch, but you just wish it went for another hour and a half.”
Dyson bemoaned the batting collapse that saw his side lose their last six wickets for 52 runs, and felt this was an indication that there was plenty more work still to be done for the team to be considered performing at its optimum.
”We played a bad hour and it cost us pretty badly, but that’s cricket,” he said. ”If you play a bad hour, you have to go and make up for that somewhere.
”I think we have some way to go before we can say we are getting the most out of the team. There are some areas we can definitely improve upon.
”What we want to see is this team consistently playing good competitive cricket and I think we’re making good strides towards this.”
West Indies have lost 12 of the last 13 Tests they have contested against Australia, who hold the Frank Worrell Trophy — symbol of Test supremacy between the two sides.
The home team has not won a Test series against the Aussies in the Caribbean since 1991. – Sapa-AFP