West Indies team gets down to business for Sachin's 200th Test

The West Indies cricket team should not have been in Mumbai on Sunday. It was the scheduled fifth day of the first Test in Kolkata. But they were crushed by the Indians, especially debutant pacer Mohammed Shami, inside three days.

Both the teams landed in Mumbai on Saturday and Darren Sammy's West Indians hit the nets on Sunday morning for a three-and-a-half hour session in tiring conditions. As Sammy hydrated himself with cool drinks, he exclaimed, “Sachin (Tendulkar) has been doing this for 25 years, Sachin has been doing this for 25 years...”

Even as explosive opener Chris Gayle was absent from the training session – “he is ill” was what a member of their support staff said – the rest of the West Indies players went through the grind, keen to make up for the embarrassing innings defeat in the first Test.

The players' stamina was put to utmost test, with the likes of Marlon Samuels, Kieran Powell, Kirk Edwards jogging / walking along the boundary line for at least six rounds. Former West Indies captain and now team manager, Richie Richardson, looked supremely fit, taking the rounds with his players and not showing any discomfort.

Chief coach Ottis Gibson assured that the West Indies team will put up an improved performance in the second and final Test, which will be Sachin Tendulkar's 200th and last Test appearance at the Wankhede Stadium starting on November 14.

Excerpts from an interaction Gibson had with the media here after the practice session on Sunday:

Q: What do you tell the team that collapsed in three days?
A: That we work harder. We showed glimpses of what we are capable of in Kolkata, but not for sustained enough periods. We did not last long enough. We would have been playing today. Here we are, getting out today, working hard, trying to put things that we did wrong and get them right.

Q: How you handle that batting collapse?
A: We need to bat for three days. We won the toss in good batting conditions and batted for 70-odd overs. That is not good enough. We know that. We know in India that we have to bat long, put runs on the board, 400 minimum. The 234 we made was pretty average. We all understand that. We were a little bit rusty coming here but not using that as an excuse. We still had our opportunities, 6-7 guys have got starts and 1 guy got a half-century. When India batted only 1 or 2 got starts and they got 100s, and that was the difference. There is only so much talking any coach can do.

When you are playing five batsmen, you stress the importance of those five batsmen batting and you set yourself the challenge of batting a day and a half. It is for the five batsmen to go and negotiate whatever the opposition bowlers throw at them and hang around for five days. When we have a run out and a couple of soft dismissals within that five batsmen, then it puts pressure on everybody else and that’s what happened. We have to get better, learn from those mistakes and try not to repeat but we were rusty coming and I expect there will be a much better show from this West Indies team in the next Test match.

Q: Does it disappoint you that WI are often getting into good positions and giving them away?
A: It is a bit disappointing. The last time we came (in 2011), the team wasn’t as experienced as this team. In the Delhi Test, we really played better and should have got a better result of that game we lost. All through that series, there were moments in every match. We are a much more experienced team now. We had them at 83/5 (in Kolkata). Rohit Sharma and R Ashwin played very well. That big partnership was the difference in the end.

Q: Was it a gamble going in with only five batsmen in Kolkata?
A: I suppose when you look at the result, you tend to think that way. That line up was the line up that won us the last three or four Test matches we played and we backed those guys. They did not perform as well as they have done in the past and that’s something we have to look at going into the next Test. It is a two-match contest, not a 4-match series. We’ve have to look at what combination to put out. We still believe we can win here. It is the team we put out and the way the team goes out and play that matters.

Q: How does it feel to be part of a match where the occasion (Sachin Tendulkar's 200th Test) seems to get the better of the contest?
A: I don’t think the occasion would get the better of the contest. We all are very aware of the occasion, we all are paying tribute to a legend. At the end of the day, we are very aware of what we are here to do and we did not do as well as we should have.

Q: Was facing the Indians' spin and reverse swing an issue in Kolkata?
A: I don’t think spin was that big an issue. Reverse swing, a new bowler in international cricket (Mohammed Shami) that we did not know much about bowled with high skill. It is a skill issue in the sense we can do the same thing, we can reverse swing the ball but we did not get it going. Tino Best can reverse swing the ball at high pace. We had a young guy making his debut (Sheldon Cottrell) who can also reverse swing. We did not execute very well on the day.

Again, young Shami, we don’t know much about him, bowled very well. He was very accurate, got it swinging. He did very well on his debut, we would have learnt from that. I don’t think the pitch here would be as abrasive as the one in Kolkata. Am not sure if reverse swing will play much of a role here as it did in Kolkata. But we have to wait and see. We have batsmen who have faced reverse swing before and got runs. Chris Gayle, Shiv (Shivnarine Chanderpaul), Marlon Samuels have all faced reverse swing before but they have not faced Shami before. So that’s Shami we’ll have to get used to.

Q: With Shane Shillingford bowling 55 overs in Kolkata, isn't he overburdened?
A: The fact is that we had a couple of guys that did not perform well. (Darren) Sammy did not perform the role that he had to perform as well as he should have done. Veerasammy Permaul was our most economical bowler but did not look as threatening as he should have been. We wanted him to but he was our most economical bowler at the end of the day. Those two were a little bit ineffective. That means it puts a lot of pressure on other bowlers. Shane (Shillingford) was our most effective bowler, so your most effective bowlers bowl the most overs, that’s normal.

Tino and Sheldon also have a role to play when they come in for short spells but need to be more accurate. All in all, we were a little rusty coming in and it showed in the way we did not hit the straps with our line and length and the seamers and spinners were not as accurate as we could be. That’s when we look back at our fielding innings, there was a really good partnership between Rohit and Ashwin. But if you look at the first session we bowled where we had five wickets, what happened after that gave signs that once we get it right and we can sustain it, we could be a real threat.

Q: How crucial is Shillingford for West Indies?
A: Shane is a quality spinner. He has taken somewhere near 50 wickets in 11 Test matches. He is a quality bowler, spins it a bit, can make it move both ways as well. He can be a handful for anybody on any surface. If pitches have anything for Ashwin and Ojha, then Shane will also benefit and that is a plus for us.

Q: Losing Kemar Roach to injury is a setback for you, isn't it?
A: When we came here, we knew of his shoulder injury. We did not know the severity of it, how bad it was. We knew it was a niggle and we were expecting the niggle to improve for him to be able to play. To find out that he was not going to be able to play is obviously very disappointing because he has been one of our key bowlers in this format in the last two years.

Q: With the absence of giant fast bowlers in the West Indies team, do the opposition batsmen feel less intimated now?
A: I think in the next few years, we won’t have the 6-foot-7-inch giants like Joel Garner but you will see the emergence of some fast bowlers. Cottrell had a great debut but not in the same way that Shami had but he had a good debut. Shanon Gabriel has been called up to replace Kemar. We are missing Kemar, We are missing Ravi Rampaul. Jason Holder has made his debut in limited overs and has done very well. So, a few fast bowlers are coming around and I expect in the next few years, with things being equal, we will be able to get back somewhere to where it was – the four-pronged pace attack of old. But, at the same time, when you are coming to India and you are playing at Kolkata, where the ball is bouncing twice to the wicketkeeper on the first day, you have to ask yourself, 'Should you play four fast bowlers or play two quality spinners if you have two quality spinners?'.