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| Sunday, 17 July 2005 |
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Chanderpaul praises team for fighting performance COLOMBO, July 16 (Reuters) West Indies captain Shivnarine Chanderpaul praised his young players despite their loss to Sri Lanka by six wickets in the first test on Saturday. West Indies started the series without 10 of their leading players, including top batsman Brian Lara, because of a protracted contracts dispute with their cricket board. Despite being firm underdogs the young West Indies team produced a gutsy performance and put considerable pressure on a Sri Lankan team who have a fine record on home soil. "I have to say well done to the guys for a good show and for they way they came out fighting in this game," Chanderpaul told reporters. "Few people expected them to come out and play the sort of cricket they played. "In the first innings we were doing well but we did not have the killer instinct necessary to take the game away from them." Sri Lanka's veteran bowlers Chaminda Vaas (4-15) and Muttiah Muralitharan (6-36) shone in the second innings as West Indies were bowled out for 113, leaving Sri Lanka a modest 172 target. West Indies coach Bennett King, though, was disappointed by the performance of his batsmen and the lack of fitness of his bowlers, believing a prime opportunity to beat Sri Lanka had been missed. "We played very well initially and set up what should have been a positive result for us, but it is very hard to win a cricket match when five of your top six score 11 runs," said King. "It was quite dark and the ball swung around during that period when we lost wickets but we had practised for this and they are certainly better players than that," he added. "The bowlers did enough to make them uncomfortable for long periods of time on what was a very flat track, but we let them off the hook because we didn't have enough petrol in the tank to execute our plans." Sri Lanka's captain Marvan Atapattu admitted that it was a rusty performance from his team, who were returning to the fray after several months off. "People might have expected us to run through them but it doesn't happen like that all the time," said Atapattu. "I would rate it a seven out of 10 performance because although we played a weak West Indies side we had to win the game in the final innings and that was pleasing. "We were under pressure on 49-3 but Mahela (Jayawardene) and Thilan (Samaraweera) batted brilliantly and took responsibility for winning the game. "We now have to improve our batting for the second game." |
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