Ramnaresh Sarwan hopes his side can continue to upset the odds when they play England in the second Test starting at Headingley here on Friday.
LEEDS: West Indies captain Ramnaresh Sarwan hopes his side can continue to upset the odds when they play England in the second Test starting at Headingley here on Friday.
The tourists, ranked a lowly eighth in the world Test rankings, and with just a day of match practice in England before the opening contest of a four-match series, fought hard to draw the first Test at Lord's.
"Playing so well at Lord's, and drawing a Test match a lot of people said we would lose - that meant a lot to us," Sarwan told reporters at Headingley on Thursday.
"That should give us momentum for this match," Sarwan, captain following the retirement of star batsman Brian Lara, added. Sarwan, who said West Indies were likely to name an unchanged XI, was also heartened by the aggression his pace bowlers showed as the match at Lord's wore on.
"One positive we can take from the last game is that we bowled quite a few short balls in the second innings. In the first innings, we were very hesitant about it - a couple of our players looked very shy. That is one of the tactics we might use in this game."
"There was a lot of talk about us not getting too much practice before the first game. But now we've had sufficient practice and spent plenty of time in the middle bowling and batting, so I think we've come on a long way.
"We played very competitively throughout the Test match, and we showed some sort of fight. That is something which has been lacking from us for some time," Sarwan explained.
"It's very important we continue to compete. When I got here in England I said I need us to be much more consistent than in the past."
England are set to be captained by batsman Michael Vaughan, out of Test cricket for 18 months with a variety of injuries. "I can remember when I was much younger he captained England, and it is good to play against those people you look up to," Sarwan, 26, said of his opposing skipper.
"He's been very good for England; he ususally does a good job for them and gets everyone in good spirits - which is important.
"It's very important for us to try to get at his weaknesses, because he's the sort of player who tends to get very big scores if he gets set."
West Indies were undone at Lord's by left-arm spinner Monty Panesar, who took six for 129, to leave the tourists 116 behind on first innings, including five lbws.
"He was quite new to most of us," batsman Sarwan said of Panesar.
"We hadn't seen much of him before Lord's. He didn't get many wickets with the turning ball; it was his arm ball. We should have a better feel of him this time."
But West Indies stayed on top of England fast bowler Stephen Harmison, who had disappointing match figures of one for 138 and Sarwan said: "We saw when Australia played them they were very positive against Harmison and kind of threw him off. We have a similar sort of approach."
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