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Sammy: Ready for Pakistan challenge

West Indies captain Darren Sammy said he was very dissapointed with his team's performance and lost the second match in a row after being in a dominating position.

West Indies have a lot of things to ponder over, especially in the batting department. Their last two performances have exposed the brittleness of the middle-order.

"I am very disappointed with our performance. We created another opportunity where we could have won but we didn't capitalize", said a disappointed Sammy, addressing the media after the 80-run defeat.

Despite the defeat, he chose to extract some positives from the game. "Ravi Rampaul's bowling is one of the biggest positives we can take out from this. He got an opportunity and grabbed it with both hands", he said.

"From the position India were in, to restrict them to 268 was a great effort by the boys", he reckoned.
When asked if India's move to open with a spinner surprised them, he quickly shot back. " It was no surprise that India opened with a spinner. Many teams have done that and we've done that too", he said.

The 27-year old regretted dropping Yuvraj Singh, which proved to be extremely costly for West Indies. "Yuvi played well. I was the culprit who dropped him on 13, and he made most use of it. He did well with the ball too", added a dejected Sammy.

He however hoped that the side would bounce back quickly from the twin defeats. The skipper also felt that it wouldn't greatly matter who they come up against in the knock-out stages.

West Indies will take on Pakistan at Mirpur on March 23. It will be the first time Pakistan will be travelling outside their 'adopted home Sri Lanka, as they travel to Dhaka.

Sammy sounded confident ahead of the quarter-final. "Pakistan have been playing well. Shahid Afridi has been leading from the front. I don't think they've had a bad game, and hopefully we'll bring out our A-game and beat them", he warned.

The all-rounder was hopeful that their best batsmen Chris Gayle would recover in time for the quarter-final. "I am sure Chris won't miss an opportunity of playing in a World Cup quarter-final, I know he will come out and give his best", he said.

He also hailed Sachin Tendulkar's decision to walk despite given not-out as "brilliant".

The team management's decision to drop out of form Shivnarine Chanderpaul came under the scanner once again. " He didn't come in to our scheme of things as he hasn't been in the best of nicks. We still respect his contributions and have full confidence in him. Maybe we will play him in the quarter-finals. We haven't counted him out and he understands that", he added.

Before signing off, he also heaped praises on World Cup debutant R Ashwin who performed exceedingly well in front of his home crowd.

"Ashwin bowled well. We have heard a lot about him, but this was the first time we had an opportunity to face him. He got his chance and he made the most use of it", he quipped.

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