Gibson sees Series win as ‘something to cherish’

Basseterre, St Kitts — Ottis Gibson is pleased with the performances of his team, following their recent dominance over New Zealand in the Digicel Twenty20 and One-Day International Series. The West Indies Head Coach said he saw signs of improvement over the last three weeks of competition, and the players should be proud of what they achieved.

The Windies won the Digicel T20 Series 2-0 when the teams met at the Central Broward Regional Park in south Florida. They also over-powered the Black Caps in the ODIs and clinched the series last Saturday, before putting the icing on the cake with a fourth victory at Warner Park on Monday.

“Winning takes a lot of hard work and a lot of effort. A lot of commitment from everyone concerned has gone into this success, and as a team we are happy to have won both the T20 and ODI Series against the New Zealanders,” Gibson said.

“In England – where we had pretty much the same side – we didn’t do that well and questions were asked. It was really good to see how the guys have returned home and answered those questions with some good performances.”

Gibson added: “When we win we have to cherish it… this is something to cherish. The key is that guys handled the pressure very well in this series, much better than we have done in the past, so that was really good to see. We got performances from all over the team. Almost everyone put his hand up and put in a strong performance when it was required. As a team we are happy with the series results and we look to take the momentum on from here.”

The star in the One-Dayers was slow bowler Sunil Narine, who was voted the Digicel Man-of-the-Series. The 24-year-old proved too much for the Black Caps and ended with 13 wickets at a superb average of 11.23 and an economy rate of just 2.92 runs per over.

Andre Russell, another 24-year-old, was also brilliant with both bat and ball. He struck a superb match-changing 59 not out on Monday to go to 130 runs at an average of 130 per innings in the series. His strike rate was 162.5 – the best in the series. The gifted allrounder also took 10 wickets at 22.7 runs each, including two four-wicket hauls.

After celebrating the great exploits in the limited overs format, Gibson turned his attention towards the upcoming two-match Digicel Test Series, which starts next Wednesday at the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Ground in Antigua.

“On a tour if you are the opposition and you lost a T20 Series and an ODI Series you would be down on yourself, but they (New Zealand) have some players coming in and they will expect a boost,” Gibson reasoned.

“We will also have some players coming into our team, the likes of Shiv Chanderpaul, and we all know what he is capable of. Every new format requires new thinking, so we will get together in Antigua next week and plan for how we will go about winning the Test series as well.”

DIGICEL 2012 SERIES – New Zealand to West Indies

Digicel One-Day International Series

July 5: 1st Digicel ODI – West Indies won by 9 wickets at Sabina Park, Jamaica

July 7: 2nd Digicel ODI – West Indies won by 55 runs at Sabina Park

July 11: 3rd Digicel ODI – New Zealand won by 88 runs at Warner Park, St. Kitts

July 14: 4th Digicel ODI – West Indies won by 24 runs at Warner Park

July 16: 5th Digicel ODI – West Indies won by 20 runs at Warner Park

Upcoming matches

July 20-22: West Indies A vs New Zealand – Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Ground, Antigua – 10 a.m.

Digicel Test Series

July 25-29: 1st Digicel Test – Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Ground – 10 a.m.

August 2-6: 2nd Digicel Test – Sabina Park, Jamaica – 10 a.m.