We have lots to learn from India: Darren Sammy

Kolkata, Nov 8 (IANS) Admitting that West Indies were completely outplayed in the Eden Gardens Test, skipper Darren Sammy Friday credited the Indians for their performance and said there was a lot to learn from them.

While he blamed his batsmen for playing rash shots, Sammy heaped lavish praise on Rohit Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin for their batting and seamer Mohammed Shami for his bowling.

“It was a disappointing loss. We are a much better team than how we played. But the credit must go to India the way used the old ball especially Shami who got to reverse the ball quite well.

“Our batsmen were not patient enough including me. Prior to the match, I had said hopefully the Indian batsmen will play lot of shots but it’s our batsmen who ended up playing loose shots,” said Sammy after his team went down to India by an innings and 51 runs inside three days.

“We have not batted well at all. Our batsmen, including me, played lot of rash and bad shots.

“We are not occupying the crease as much as we should. Test cricket is about patience and we saw how Rohit and Ashwin occupied the crease and we should take lessons from them on how they batted. They played ball by ball and that one partnership batted us out of the game,” said Sammy about the record 280 runs partnership between Rohit and Ashwin.

Sammy was also all praise for debutant Shami who returned match figures of 9/118.

“Credit goes to Shami, first game, very impressive. He showed us how to bowl on Indian wickets. He bowled dead straight and on to the stumps getting the ball to reverse. Most of his wickets were bowled or LBW.

“While our bowlers too were getting the ball to reverse but the difference between them and Shami was the length that he bowled. He started on good length with the ball coming in to the stumps while our bowlers were too full and inconsistent. He showed us how to do it.”

Apart from accusing his batsmen of not applying themselves unlike their Indian counterparts, Sammy also blamed his bowlers including himself for not being able to keep things tight when offie Shane Shillingford was bowling well.

“I am disappointed with how I and Veerasammy Permaul bowled. We could not do what Indian spinner Pragyan Ojha did when Ashwin was bowling well,” he said.

He also rued the absence of pacer Kemar Roach who had sit out the match due to injury.

Sammy though hoped of making a comeback in the next Test at Mumbai.

“We could learn a lot from India the way they played and look to implement that in our next match (Mumbai). Lot to think about but all is not lost. We have one more match and hope to come back much stronger than what we did here,” said Sammy.