Audley Boyd, Assistant Sport Editor
West Indies players celebrate with the crowd as they walk past the Red Stripe Mound on a victory lap, after ekeing out a narrow and exciting one-run win off the penultimate ball of the second ODI against India at Sabina Park on Saturday. - DELLMAR
GIVEN THEIR experi-menting in the build-up to this Digicel one-day international series, West Indies skipper Brian Lara labelled Saturday's sensational one-run win against India at Sabina Park as "important" in the context of the team's development.
A total of 17 players were used in the preceding series against lowly-rated African side Zimbabwe as the regional side sought the right combination to rebuild their status in this battle against number three ranked India.
The team suffered a heart-breaking defeat off the penultimate ball, losing an opportunity to notch a rare win under circumstances that have become somewhat familiar during this period of demise.
However, they transformed that situation into a winning one on Saturday in a nerve-racking finish to a low-scoring match after rattling up 198. Needing 11 runs to win off the final over bowled by Dwayne Bravo, India struck nine off the first four balls before Yuvraj Singh, the danger man who hit consecutive fours to advance to 93, was bowled off the fifth delivery with his team all out for 197.
EXPERIMENTING
"It was an important win, very very important win," Lara exclaimed. "The fact that we've been playing good cricket against Zimbabwe, we were improving, we were experimenting and at some point in time you think well, when is it going to come to fruition, and today it did."
Pointing to their performances in the past, Lara said the team needs to keep striving for consistency.
"What is good about the West Indies team is that we do get in positions to win. Unfortunately, we tend to relax or throw that opportunity away. Today we didn't and that was a true show of character. I thought Thursday was a true show of character but in the last stride India got up. That is the key in our game, even in the Test matches as well we do find ourselves performing well for a certain period of time and we just can't close it out."
He further explained: "Today we did and we're going to try as much as possible to bottle what happened today to ensure that we can use it in the future. Now we've to continue with it, we've to show that what we're doing, step by step, each single match against Zimbabwe leading up to this series, was for a purpose and I think's it's important that we carry on in St. Kitts and Trinidad and Tobago."
The players flew out for the third match in St. Kitts tomorrow. Lara conceded the game was close and said it will boost the team for the remainder of the series.
GODS SMILED ON US
"It was a very close game, just like Thursday. The Indians could have won as well and we could've been two-nil down but the gods smiled on us. (There's ) Optimism going into St. Kitts and Trinidad and Tobago, we're looking forward to it. We 've got to come down from that high and play good cricket."
Despite the success, Lara said the team still needs to lift its game.
"We still have a lot of work to do, (there is) a lot of room for improvement and if we can get that improvement, you can see an even better performance.
"Today (Saturday) we won but we want to win a lot easier. We don't want to put ourselves under that sort of pressure and I think each and every single individual has got to improve all facets of his game to ensure that happens.
"We can't come from 251-5 in 45 overs to 198 in 50 overs on the same pitch," he said referring to Thursday's match. "I thought the pitch played okay. It spun on Thursday, it spun today, there was no real difference but I just think (there was) a lack of application and we're gonna work. We've a little breathing space in the fact that we're not two-nil down, we're one-all. So we're going to go in with a little bit of optimism and confidence in the match on Tuesday."
