Brathwaite: ‘Dig deep. Don’t give up. Test cricket is tough’

“Dig deep. Don’t give up. Test cricket is tough.”

Kraigg Brathwaite is not expansive with the bat. Ditto with words. But in those pithy sentences, the West Indies captain sent a clear message to his players to not lose heart despite being beaten in two days and an hour at Lord’s .

Brathwaite admitted West Indies had arrived at Lord’s with the aim of winning the first Test of the three-match series. His fast bowlers Kemar Roach (before he was injured) and Shamar Joseph wanted to ruin James Anderson’s farewell. Eventually, though, West Indies were simply the support cast at the Anderson gala attended by full houses including on Friday, for which the ECB refunded fans because there was fewer than 15 overs of play.

“For me to the boys [the message] is generally: things will not always go as planned,” Brathwaite said after the defeat by an innings and 114 runs. “Also, we came to win the Test and it didn’t happen. But [there are] still two Tests remaining in this series and we still have six Tests remaining for the year. So it’s all a build-up. We can’t believe that because of this [England] win, we are out of it or anything. We got to dig deep, we got to keep believing and keep stressing on it. It’s easy to give up. It’s easy to say, ‘well, I can’t get it done’, but we got to keep believing and keep supporting one another.”

West Indies failed to bat 50 overs in both innings – 41.4 in the first, 47 in the second. No batter got to 50, with the unbeaten 31 from tailender Gudakesh Motie, who threw his bat around on day three, being their highest score. The disappointing bit for West Indies was that their batters were easily defeated and committed basic errors at the smallest nudge from England’s bowlers, especially debutant Gus Atkinson.

Fast bowler Jayden Seales, who took four wickets on day two, had pointed to the batting failure on the first day when West Indies were dismissed for 121. Brathwaite, who made 6 and 4 at Lord’s, concurred.

“Batting first, you want to put runs on the board in the first innings especially. We know where we went wrong. We know where we can be better. My thing for the group is stay mentally tough. It’s Test cricket. You go through successful periods, you go through tough periods, but you just got to be strong and believe in your ability. You got to believe that something’s around the corner. Just keep doing the right things. And everything will work out.”

When asked what positives West Indies could take from this defeat, Brathwaite said bowling England out was a good start. “We got ten wickets. We did bowl them out albeit [for] 50-60 runs too many. With the bat, we got three guys that got 20-odd, they batted for close to an hour if not an hour. We caught decently as well.”

West Indies do know how to win Tests and even series. They haven’t lost a Test series against England at home in two decades and are current holders of the Richards-Botham Trophy. Brathwaite said he, along with his predecessor Jason Holder, would remind the players of those facts and keep them inspired for the rest of the series.

“We all have had some memories, we’ve all had glimpses of doing great stuff on this level … That’s what I call experience. That’s where experience comes in, Jason Holder has been great sharing his and I will continue to do it (too). As I said, we just got to dig deep on. Stay mentally tough.”