Things hadn't been going well but I had the belief, this team had the belief – Darren Sammy
Darren Sammy, the West Indian Captain, was very excited after the victory of his team in the first Test against Pakistan by 40 runs, on 15th May, 2011, at Providence Stadium, Guyana.
He assured that his all team mates were confident that they can win the match, which they proved.
The team underwent a lot of criticism before the start of the Test match and even the form and performance of the Captain was talked about. They had earlier lost the One Day International Series to Pakistan 3-2 and the whole team was under lot of pressure.
It was a low scoring match and 226 runs scored by the Windies remained the highest in all four innings.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Green-c60723 Shirts were bowled out on 178, losing the Test with 40 runs.
Sammy led from the front by taking five wickets in the second innings which included the key wickets of Misbah-Ul- Haq and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Umar-Akmal-c94595 who were the real threat for them.
Four of his victims were leg before wicket, while http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Saeed-Ajmal-c87859 was clean bowled.
He was not impressive with the bat but finished with match figures of seven wickets and was rightly declared the ‘Player of the match’.
"We as a team needed this performance," Sammy, who picked up a five-wicket haul in the second innings to bowl out Pakistan for 178, said. "Lately, things hadn't been going well but I had the belief, this team had the belief."
Devendra Bishoo made an impressive Test debut and grabbed four wickets of important Pakistani batsmen in the first innings.
Ravi Rampaul also had a good match and sent seven batsmen back to the pavilion.
Pakistan was in a comfortable position at 80 runs for the loss of just three wickets, Misbah and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Asad-Shafiq-c46208 were at the crease on the close of the third day’s play.
Pakistan had a fair chance to win the match and they could have won the series for the first time but they put themselves under pressure from the word go on the fourth day. They should have come out in a positive manner and the result could have been different.
Misbah was displeased after losing the match and appreciated the rival team who overtook them in all departments of the game.
Saeed Ajmal was prominent by claiming 11 wickets in the match for the first time. Pakistan dropped too many catches throughout the match which was one of the reasons for losing the game.
"We dropped so many catches and gave away so many runs to the lower order. We were a little disappointing from the batting point of view also," Misbah said. "We fought well yesterday [Saturday] to recover after losing early wickets, but most of our guys
got out to good balls."
Pakistan has to wait for the second and the last Test which is scheduled to be held on May 20, 2011, at St. Kitts.
They should assess their lapses in the first Test and regroup in order to square the series.
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