GALLE, Sri Lanka, CMC – Ottis Gibson hopes West Indies can reverse the trend of losing in the short term, but he believes the regional side can ultimately rise to the pinnacle of the game again in five years.
The West Indies coach believes his side’s performance so far in the opening Test against Sri Lanka is only the beginning of what they can accomplish with a little hard work, and determination.
“I’ve come [to this job] with a winning attitude, and I have driven home to them this is what we can achieve if you believe hard enough, and if you put in the right sort of work,” said Gibson in an interview with The Island daily newspaper.
“They’ve done a lot of physical work, and that physical work is demanded out there at the moment in the middle, and you’ve seen the guys are still hanging in and going strong.
“As soon as you start to believe, you see a change in attitudes on the field as well and we are here to play competitive cricket and you’ve seen four competitive days from us.”
Gibson added: “I’ve come to the West Indies with a plan, and a mindset of winning. During our camp in Barbados, we spoke of what we can achieve from this tour, and people are beginning to show a lot more belief in themselves.
“For the last 10-15 years or so, West Indies struggled, and when you get beaten often it becomes a habit almost.”
Gibson conceded that West Indies’ continuous poor run in international cricket had hurt him, and disclosed that he has worked with the West Indies Cricket Board to lay the foundation, and grow a system that will help the revive the fortunes of the regional side.
“There are some goals that we want to achieve,” he said. “It’s 15 years, some people say, we have been in the doldrums.
“I say we have not played as well as we can for 15 years. I think it will take at least five years to get back to where we want to be, but at the same time you have to start from somewhere so this is the start of a stabilisation process.”
Gibson remained confident that West Indies can complete their first Test win in Sri Lanka in the current Test.
“We are over 100 runs ahead, and [on Friday], we’ll come with the sort of attitude to have a go and see what happens,” he said.
“We can’t have any other attitude, but to come out, and put in the same sort of effort we put in over the last four days.”
He said: “We know it’s going to be tough, but we still got a 100-plus lead. If we get a couple of wickets early, who knows what will happen.
“But the guys have to believe that they can still get something positive out of the game. We had a lot of positives, but winning would be the ultimate.”
Sri Lanka, following-on 202 runs behind on first innings, were 89 without loss when heavy rain prompted an early close.
