West Indies all-rounder, Roston Chase is throwing his support being West Indies’ batsmen to home in on England’s 469 for 9 declared first innings total.
Despite the imposing total, during a virtual press conference yesterday following the close of play on day two, Chase stated “I would never say 400 odd is beyond us with the quality of players we have and the way we played in the first game, this wicket is not as quick as the first innings so you have a little of time to adjust unlike the first innings where the ball was swinging around a bit so I’m backing our players to get 400 or even close to it to put England in a position and place to decide what they are going to do.”
Chase posited that West Indies will need to take a page out of England’s book and approach the total with patience and grit. Chase namedropped Dominic Sibley who batted over nine hours while facing 372 balls and scoring 120. Sibley forged a 260-run fourth wicket partnership with Ben Stokes who made 176.
“The approach is just to play each ball on its merit, take note of the English players, especially Sibley, how patient he was and allowed the bowlers to come into areas and scored, so it’s just for us to take that leaf from their book and play each ball on merit and when the opportunity comes to score, score and go about it the normal way, run hard between the wickets, I think that they ran really well between the wickets so that is something we can take from them as well and stay patient,” he noted.
The Bajan all-rounder reckoned his side still did well to contain England from a bigger score.
“Being out there for 160 overs usually teams would be showing a lot of signs of tiredness and waywardness but I thought although the English batters batted very well, we didn’t really let the game get away from us, we still kept the run rate under three runs which was our aim…and I thought that was good…I still thought we showed good energy out there, we made a few blunders in the field which is going to happen when you’re out there for that long,” he explained.
Chase stood behind his captain, Jason Holder’s decision to bat first. He revealed that it was a collective decision following the conditions.
“Looking at the conditions, I think the conditions played a big role in us deciding to bowl first, outside was very overcast and dark, and the lights were on before we even started so having the success we had in the first game, and everyone was down for the decision to bowl first,” he added.
Nevertheless, Chase was instrumental in West Indies’ cause having bagged his second five-wicket haul in Test. His first also came against the same opposition last year in the Caribbean.
Speaking on the emotions following his bowling performance, Chase admitted he likes to bowl to England stating, “yes, my second five-wicket haul following my eight-wicket haul in Barbados, I tend to do well against them even in 2017 when we toured I came up against them and got a few wickets although England is not really a place where spinners dominate. I still think I found a way to get some wickets and I’m happy about it.”
The 28-year-old believed the conditions was a major factor in him performing well. He related, “I guess with the bad weather we had leading up to the Test match the pitch had a little bit of moisture early on so I thought that was what really helped the ball to spin that much so early on in the game but I thought the wicket, as the day went on the wicket got a little easier, the ball wasn’t spinning that much, wasn’t really spinning from straight early on as yesterday but it’s still a good wicket to bat on although you’re getting some spin.”
However, with his success, it came with a toll on his body. He mentioned that his body was sore having bowled 44 overs in the innings but recommended “it’s just about managing your body, having that will power to come back…”
