WEST Indies Under-19 Captain Stephan Pascal and all-rounder Nathan Edwards hailed their side’s two-wicket win against England Under-19s in the ICC Men’s Under-19 Cricket World Cup on Friday in South Africa.

Pascal hit the top score of 58 off 84 balls in a successful chase of 193 to win their Group B match at J.B. Marks Oval, and a Player-of-the-Match performance from Edward helped them to seal the win and secure a place in the Super Six stage of the tournament.

Edward collected three for 28 from 6.3 overs with his left-arm pace bowling and England folded for 192 after they were put in to bat, and he then scored a 49 not out to the Caribbean side over the finish line.

“This win will give the team a lot of confidence seeing that everybody in the team can win a game for us, and that’s a very good thing,” Edward said during the post-play TV interview.
“It took a very long time for me to get going [when he batted] because the pitch is a little difficult for you to impose yourself, but I stuck in.

“I was trying to tell everyone to stay calm, play each ball one by one, watch the ball and play it on its merit, play what you see.”

Pascal said he was locked in to the task at hand when he was at the crease, but he started to feel nervous after he got dismissed, knowing that he did not complete the job and left it for someone else to do.

“When I got out, my heart rate was at its highest,” he said. “I am the sort of person that I would rather be in the situation, but I gave it away.

“I am displeased with the way I got out. I feel it was another lapse in concentration on my part, but I feel it is beginning to come together for me, so I feel I just have to continue going.”

He said: “This win shows character again. I feel in this group stage we have shown a lot of character, but it also shows passion, because coming into this game, we really wanted to win, and this situation put us through cramps and tense moments, so I feel it showed.

“The few glimpses seen here is not close to the amount of what we can do, so I feel there is a lot more to come from us.”