GROS ISLET, St Lucia, CMC – Roston Chase has hailed the dynamic team spirit which earned West Indies a shock 2-1 series win over highly-rated England in the just concluded three-Test series.
Lowly-ranked West Indies entered the series as rank underdogs but stunned England in the first two Tests to reclaim the coveted Wisden Trophy for the first time in a decade.
Aware they had been written off before England arrived in the Caribbean, Chase said the team formed a strong bond of self-belief which eventually paid dividends.
“At the start of the series no one really gave us a chance. It was just the guys in the dressing room pulling together and within ourselves we knew we could do it,” Chase told reporters after hitting his fifth Test hundred in a losing cause in the third Test on Tuesday.
“So we stuck together and we won the first match and then we said ‘don’t let us get too far ahead of ourselves. We have to do it in the second game as well.’ We didn’t want to leave it to the third game and we came up trumps in Antigua.”
West Indies outplayed England to trounce them by 381 runs inside three days in the Bridgetown opening Test before executing brilliantly in Antigua to win the second by 10 wickets inside four days.
With the series already secured and inspirational captain Jason Holder suspended for the final Test, West Indies dropped their guard and suffered a 232-run loss, with a day left in the contest here. Chase said the heavy defeat had made the series success “bittersweet”.
“We didn’t have the best game here in St Lucia but we had already won the series,” he noted. “It is a bittersweet feeling now that we’ve lost the game but we still won the series.”
Despite his side’s loss, Chase covered himself in personal glory with an entertaining unbeaten 102.
He arrived at the wicket with the Windies tottering on 10 for three before lunch and took the attack to the tourists in an innings laced with 12 fours and a six.
“It’s nothing new to me. I’ve done it before with wickets falling around [me],” he explained. “I just try to hold my composure and try to build a partnership with whoever is coming next.”
