Thaindian News

Port of Spain, June 4 (IANS) India’s stand-in captain Suresh Raina lauded Subramaniam Badrinath and Rohit Sharma for the team’s 16-run win over the West Indies in the one-off Twenty20 international at the Queen’s Park Oval here Saturday.

Twenty20 debutant Subramaniam Badrinath scored a stroke-filled 43 and Sharma made a 23-ball 26 to help India recover from 56 for four to a challenging 159 for six in 20 overs.

“We played well, the bowlers executed the plans very well. Badrinath and Rohit set it up for us,” said Raina.

The new captain also praised the team for their outstanding fielding.

“This is the best fielding side we’ve had in the last four to five years. Our new coach Duncan Fletcher and Trevor Penny, the fielding coach, have helped us a lot,” he said.

Badrinath, Man of the Match, was happy to start the tour with a win.

“My form is good, and I’m happy to start the tour well. The track was a little similar to what we have back in India, so that helped. We initially thought of getting close to 140. It was tough to bat, and it was damp, but we played some shots in the end to get to 160,” he said.

West Indies skipper Darren Sammy said his gave away extra 20 runs.

“We stuck at it to start with but we let them get 20 runs too many. We need to go back to the drawing board. I was a little surprised by the pitch, it was a good decision to field but we didn’t restrict them to the total we wanted,” he said.

“Dot balls have been plaguing us and we left it a little too late in the end. But with people like Christopher Barnwell, we know we can chase big Twenty20 totals. The batsmen should play the spinners better come Monday,” he said.