West Indies captain Chris Gayle yesterday described his team’s performance as rubbish after they crashed to an upset two-run defeat against Zimbabwe in the opening game of the five-match Digicel One Day Series at the Providence National Stadium.

In a close encounter which was not decided until the final ball of the 50th over the West Indies, like they have done so many times before, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

The team came within inches of their first victory of the year needing four runs from three balls but lost two wickets with successive balls before last man Kemar Roach managed a single off the final delivery of the contest.

“To be honest I am very disappointed with how we pursued the target but I must give credit to Zimbabwe for how they played and how they went about getting their runs,” Gayle said at the post match press conference.

“They set the tone for us and got a good total of 254 which is not such a challenging target on this pitch,” he added.

Gayle said he was disappointed that the West Indies lost after such a good fight back.

“I thought that there were too many dot balls in our innings and it’s really disappointing to know we made such a good come back in the end and lost,” he said.

The West Indies were off to a solid start with Gayle and Adrian Barath putting on 99 for the first wicket in 23 overs.

Gayle made 57, Barath 50 and Shivnarine Chanderpaul was his usual reliable self topscoring with 70 but only Narsingh Deonarine, 17 and Nikita Miller, 12 reached double figures of the other batsmen.

“I am very disappointed in Dinesh Ramdin, Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Smith, they are the people down the order who have to do it for us and they have not been doing much with the bat” he disclosed.

He admitted that the batsmen have been struggling and suggested that the problem might be mental rather than technical

Gayle, however, said he will stand firm as captain and is committed to helping the team through the turmoil.

Victorious Zimbabwe skipper, Prosper Utseya, said that the key to their victory was team work and keeping the team calm.

He said that even though they have scored two consecutive victories over the West Indies they will be taking it one day at a time as they do not want to get carried away.

“This victory is important for us because every time we play we try to keep the flag flying high and we have been working very hard so I think that is where our confidence is coming from,” Utseya said.

Utseya said that he still thinks that the West Indies is a good team and that they should play to their best because they came ready to play.