DERBY, England, CMC - Amid a growing debate over Brian Lara’s tenure as skipper, Ramnaresh Sarwan remains committed to supporting the West Indies captain even as several prominent former players clamour for a change at the helm.
“I will continue to support him 100 percent and I’m sure everyone in the team is going to continue to support him as well,” said Sarwan, after leading the tourists to a 315-run victory over Derbyshire in a three-day match that ended Saturday at the County Ground.
Recommended by Lara for the vice-captaincy last year starting with the home series against Australia, the 24-year-old Guyanese has had several opportunities this year to lead the regional side, captaining the team in four One-Day Internationals in the Caribbean and two first-class matches on the tour of England. It is a challenge he relishes.
“So far it’s been a wonderful experience. When you get the full support of the team and the players are performing, it makes the job a lot easier,” he explained.
“It’s been pretty good and I’ve been enjoying it.”
Mindful of the delicate nature of the issue and his own position as the heir apparent, Sarwan did not wish to dwell too much on the state of the captaincy, preferring instead to focus on the significance of the victory over Derbyshire ahead of the two remaining npower Tests against England.
“We’ll be a totally different team come the next two Test matches,” he asserted.
“I’m sure we’re going to compete a lot better and I’m confident in everyone.”
Yet after losing the first two Tests by margins in excess of 200 runs and facing the prospect of a series whitewash, it will take more than just talk to transfer that confidence into performance from next Thursday at Old Trafford.
Even in the wake of the victory at Derby, the weak batting performance on the opening day of that fixture still rankles.
“We had a discussion about it. We were really disappointed by it all because we obviously didn’t want to play that way,” Sarwan stated in reflecting on the team’s dismissal for 223 to a rash of careless shots.
“But we’ve shown that at least we’ve learnt right away from that experience. Carlton Baugh, Ridley Jacobs and Sylvester Joseph played really well in the second innings and showed how to go about batting properly.”
In the context of a team that has struggled to dismiss the opposition in the first two Tests, Fidel Edwards’ return to form with a ten-wicket haul and the support of the newly-arrived spinner Dave Mohammed, who took five wickets in the match, offered encouraging options.
“He hasn’t really enjoyed the last couple of months, but to see Fidel come back with that sort of hunger means at lot to him and to the team,” Sarwan noted.
“He’s bowling a lot faster now and his rhythm is much better. With Dave Mohammed chipping in as well, everyone is starting to get competitive and it’s encouraging to see almost everyone vying for a place.”
That hunger shown on the last two days in Derby will have to be maintained over the next two weeks however, as England certainly have the appetite and self-belief to inflict their first clean sweep of the West Indies in a Test series for 76 years.