Friday, March 27 – Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados: West Indies Captain Chris Gayle, whose power-packed innings of 80 off 43 balls helped drive his side to a eight-wicket over England in the 3rd Digicel One-Day International on Friday, said his entire team deserved credit for the convincing victory.
“I just want to commend each and every one on the effort they put in today,” he said after the match. “I’m not going to actually start singling out players. We all did well in bowling, batting and fielding. We all turned up to play a good game of cricket today which was tremendous.”
“The team spirit is very high. I just want to commend the guys on that again,” he added. “Whatever we do, we always stick as a unit.”
“When you have a unit, trust me, you want to be difficult to beat and it’s just for us to actually continue in the same vein and work with each other enjoy each other’s company as well and enjoy the game,” Gayle said.
The 29-year-old left-hander, who hit eight sixes and five fours as the West Indies reached a modest victory target of 117 with nearly 30 overs to spare, was obviously pleased with his own contribution: “It was a brilliant knock. I have to give the Groundsman credit; it was a good wicket to bat on, extremely good to bat on. It’s just one of those innings. I don’t rate it in the top five or anything but we got the win and I’m happy.
“Once you utilize the first couple of overs and once you get your eye in, then definitely you can just play through the line. It was a good innings and obviously, I’m pretty happy.”
The West Indies now lead the five-match series 2-1 and have the chance to add the Digicel One-Day Series to the Digicel Test Series triumph last month.
Gayle warned that his side would be at its best to see off a hurting England side in the fourth match on Sunday: “We’ll have to better our performance from this game. The next game is very important. We can actually win the series. I’m sure they’ll come hard as us and we’ll be ready.”
England captain Andrew Strauss admitted his side was disappointed by its performance on Friday: “All the guys sitting in the dressing room are pretty embarrassed by the way we played today. It wasn’t good enough. There was very poor batting first up and we played the price. We have to take it on the chin.”
