West Indies captain Darren Sammy wasn’t amused when he heard that Suresh Raina has dubbed his batsmen as “six hitters” and dared the Indian bowlers to stop them from hitting the maximums on Sunday.
“We don’t care much about what Raina thinks. If he thinks we are only six hitters, then stop us from hitting sixes,” Sammy replied when asked about his batsmen inability to rotate strike against spinners. As usual, the affable West Indies skipper seemed to be in good mood as he answered the questions with a bit of fun and a lot of seriousness.
What’s there on Chris Gayle’s mind, asked a scribe. “I am not Jesus Christ! I don’t know what’s going on in his mind,” he laughed and replied. Then he got serious. “But I know he (Gayle) is really pumped up to play here. Whenever he is playing for the West Indies, he is very pumped up. And tomorrow’s game everyone will be pumped up.”
Will India be easy opponents, was what he was asked first up at the media conference. “You seriously ask that questionIJ” Sammy asked. “No, I don’t think any team is an easy opponent. India started off on a winning note and most likely they’ll have a lot of confidence going into the game. We know what we’re capable of doing and we’ve been playing some good T20 cricket and the guys are confident that we’d come good once we play to our full potential.”
West Indies have some world beaters in the shortest format and that gives the captain of the defending champions side to remain confident about team’s chances. “We’ve top T20 players who’ve played around the world. We’ve Gayle, Narine, Bravos all of them have a lot of experience playing T20. With the two openers, we’ve guys who can give us great impetus in the first six overs. Then we’ve Marlon, Bravo and myself to finish the innings,” Sammy said.
“If you look at our bowling unit, we’ve Narine, who is to me the No 1 bowler in this format. Badree, Bravo, and we’ve a young guy called Krishmar Santokie, who could’ve a great impact in this tournament. So we’re happy with the balance of our side. And yes we’re a very good team especially in this format,” Sammy said.
left-arm seamer Santokie is an unknown commodity in the sub-continent but it seemed the skipper had a lot of faith in his abilities. “He is the leading T20 bowler in the Caribbean and has taken a lot of wickets in the Caribbean T20 league. Most of his wickets are clean bowled and leg before wicket. You’ve to see him to know exactly what I mean,” Sammy said.