victory over Zimbabwe
…It’s been two, long hard years
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, (CMC) – It’s been two, long hard years since West Indies won a One-day International series against any opposition under any format.
This is why Chris Gayle has placed some value on West Indies’ One-day International series victory over Zimbabwe, and is finding it hard to admit that his side was pretty unconvincing in winning four of the five matches.
West Indies wrapped up the series yesterday with a four-wicket victory in another low-scoring affair in the fifth and final One-day International at the Arnos Vale Sports Complex.
Gayle praised his side for the determination they have shown to rebound from a disheartening defeat in the first ODI two Thursdays ago at the Guyana National Stadium.
“It’s been a long time since we last won a series, and it feels really, really good to have achieved this,” said Gayle, whose 63 from 41 balls put his on course for victory yesterday.
“It has been an entire team effort because we started really badly, when we lost the first ODI. But for the guys to have bounced back, and win the series 4-1 was a tremendous effort, and I must commend them for the way they went about it.”
Gayle added: “Hopefully, we can continue [in the winning] vein. We have the Twenty20 World Cup coming up and a home series against South Africa.
“We will have camps put in place and these sorts of things ahead of those series, so hopefully it will all bear fruit and be wonderful for us, and we’ll have some good results.”
West Indies also won the second ODI last Sunday by four wickets at the Guyana National Stadium, the third ODI last Wednesday by 141 runs here, and the fourth ODI by four wickets last Friday also at this venue.
But the West Indies batting failed to ease concerns about the durability, as Zimbabwe’s spin bowlers exploited helpful conditions to make life difficult for them throughout the series.
“We have to take a close look at our batting because we want to win games more convincingly and consistently, but a win is a win,” said Gayle.
“We still have a lot of work to do on our batting. We have to try and not to lose wickets in bunches the way we do now, but it is something we have been discussing, and trying to get out of our system.”
He said: “We also have to say, ‘well done’, to Zimbabwe because they put out a good effort in the first couple of matches in the series, and then they lost some of the momentum.
“We want to thank them for the challenge that they presented to us throughout this series, and we will be looking to use the experience to grow from here.”
Zimbabwe captain Prosper Utseya admitted small targets are never easy to defend, and the batting is also his side’s weakness.
“There were not enough runs on the board for us to be competitive,” he said.
“We have been letting ourselves down terribly with our batting, but our bowlers have been bowling their hearts out throughout the series.”
He said: “We have to go back home and work very hard on our batting. It is important for the guys to take some lessons out of this series.”
West Indies have never lost a bilateral ODI series to the Zimbabweans.