LONDON, England, CMC – West Indies captain Darren Sammy is hoping his side can reverse the worrying trend of squandering winning positions in Test matches and says playing at the historic Lord’s will provide added inspiration for the Caribbean side.
In recent series, West Indies have seen potentially match-winning positions disappear from their grasps and Sammy wants to wipe the slate clean starting with the Lord’s Test starting today.
“We keep finding ourselves in winning positions and in some way, we keep letting it go,” Sammy lamented here yesterday.
“When you’re playing against a champion team they find a way to win and we now have to find that way when we’re on top and not to collapse and stuff and that’s been happening to us.
“It happened in India, in the Caribbean against India and against Australia recently. We’ve been really competing and pushing teams down to the wire. If you look at the last series (against Australia) I don’t think the 2-0 score reflects the way we played. Hopefully we can eliminate these mistakes here.”
West Indies are expected to face a daunting task in the three-Test series, especially boasting an inexperienced unit the majority of which having never played in England before.
Their buildup to the series has been less than smooth, with adverse weather, the late arrival of players and erratic form dogging their preparation.
Sammy said, however, the Caribbean side was hoping the Lord’s Test could mark a turn around, with the side drawing inspiration from playing at the Home of Cricket.
“Hopefully tomorrow will be the start of something special for me and the boys,” Sammy said.
“There’s been a lot of discussion in the dressing room about who will put their name on the board (for centuries and five-wicket hauls) first so there is a lot of inspiration that could be taken from Lord’s here.
“It’s the spiritual home of cricket so hopefully magical things can happen for us.”
