Barbados, July 2: West Indies captain Darren Sammy was a relieved man after the second Test ended in a draw with play being called off due to bad light; the tense final day saw Ishant Sharma complete his first ten-wicket haul as the West Indies batsmen put up some solid resistance to save the Test. In a post-match media interaction, Sammy spoke about the game and lauded the efforts of his bowlers.

Excerpts:

On whether he was relieved with the drawn result

Yeah, we have got a chance of levelling the series in Dominica so [I’m] quite happy.

On whether he thought the side could chase down 281 runs

Yes, the coach had [a] talk with the [team] and we had a plan. Until the last few overs we were on course but lost too many wickets.

On the match

It was a repetition of the first Test [where] we bowled them out cheaply and kept behind them in the first innings. [That’s] something we’ve got to work on. Obviously, if we gave them a 100-plus lead, it could have been a different ball game.

On West Indies’ batting and whether they would be going all out for a win in the last Test

Yes, we play at home. I know the selectors maybe met and selected the guys to represent us in the third Test, but we definitely as a team have to go all out to win and level the Test series.

On the bowlers and batsmen

I can’t fault the effort of the bowlers. They put in the hard yards and they have got the results. Fidel [Edwards] got eight wickets in the match [and] Ravi [Rampaul] continued to bowl well and [so did Devendra] Bishoo. It’s nice to see young [Darren] Bravo just go in and cut and bat [and] under pressure play a better innings [like that]. Like[wise for] [Marlon] Samuels and Shiv [Shivnarine Chanderpaul]. We could surely see [the] positives in [our] batting.