GANGA MANCHESTER, England (CMC):
West Indies captain Daren Ganga yesterday remained positive despite his team's 60-run loss to England in the third Test at Old Trafford which gave the hosts an unassailable lead in the four-Test series.
"After the loss at Headingley, a lot of people had written us off in this series. We spoke about the process of winning a game and we set things up nicely here," Ganga told reporters.
"There were points in the game where we faltered and it cost us in the end. These are things that we're going to learn from and I'm sure the guys are going to take a lot of confidence coming out of this encounter and moving forward to Durham.
"Headingley was not something that we were accustomed to. That was true English conditions, playing in temperatures so cold and where the ball swings around so much."
He continued: "Here (Old Trafford) the ball didn't swing that much and it was more Caribbean weather. We were working to a plan. We knew exactly where we went wrong in the last Test match and we were trying our utmost to not make the same mistakes and we got close to that.
"We didn't get over the line but we showed that we have a lot of character and showed improvement in areas of our game."
Gallant effort
West Indies, in pursuit of 455 for victory, put up a gallant effort before being dismissed for 394 shortly after lunch on the fifth and final day yesterday.
The victory for England came despite a brilliant unbeaten 116 from Shivnarine Chanderpaul who was the backbone of the West Indies innings.
With the West Indies losing just two wickets in the pre-lunch session to be 379 for seven at the interval, Ganga said he still believed they could get the remaining runs at that stage.
"I was still very optimistic, once Shiv was out there I think we had a chance. He has played a brilliant innings, one of the best Test hundreds that I have seen and it is unfortunate that we couldnot go on," Ganga noted.
"Chasing a score of 455, a lot of people didn't think we could get close to that, the manner in which we set things up yesterday (Sunday) gave us a wonderful opportunity to come here and get a victory.
"All credit must be given to the guys in the manner in which they batted. Getting to 60 runs short of that total showed a lot of character, a lot of strength and we are going to take a lot of positive from this game to the next Test match."
