The West Indies team had to face a heavy defeat of 284 runs in the second Test against South Africa. The regional team were bowled out for 106 in their second innings on Saturday while chasing an improbable 391 at Wanderers.
Wicketkeeper Joshua da Silva top scored with 34 in the second innings, while all-rounder Jason Holder (19), skipper Kraig Brathwaite (18) and pacer Alzzari Joseph (18) were the only other players to reach double figures.
Moments after surrendering to bat, a serious-faced captain Brathwaite questioned his team’s mentality.
“It’s only mental. I think technically yes, we can work on the flaws. So, the thing is, you can work on your weaknesses, you can work on your strengths, but your mind has to be in the right place.”
“Test cricket is always a grind. You field a lot of overs and then as a batsman you go out and obviously face world-class bowling. It will never be easy, but I think that belief has to come within. We can say it – I can say it, the coach can say it – but when we get out there on the crease, we’ve got to do it.”
Also, the captain reminded some of the previous Series, In front of world-class bowlers, the team’s batsmen need to show that they are capable batsmen.
“We’ve done it before. It’s not to say we haven’t done it. We’ve done well against England at home and in England. Against Australia we didn’t get the runs that we would like and coming here again.”
“[Against] Zimbabwe we did well but that’s different opposition. I think when we’re [up] against the top bowlers in the world, we’ve got to show that we’re top batsmen and we haven’t done that.”
Only two batsmen managed to score 100-plus runs in the tournament – vice-captain Jermaine Blackwood’s 126 and all-rounder Jason Holder’s 118. They were two of the three batsmen to score half-centuries, the other being all-rounder Raymon Reifer.
As a whole, the West Indies batsmen were in a difficult situation throughout the tournament, losing the backbone of the West Indies batting.
However, while it was encouraging that the bowlers took 40 wickets in the tournament, the obvious problem was the lack of runs, said Brathwaite.
“Looking back, the bowlers got 40 wickets in the series.”
“That’s a good accomplishment coming back from Australia. [There were] two questionable first innings. We didn’t start as good as we should [have] – we gave them over a hundred runs in the first session both times.”
“Batting-wise we weren’t good enough. We didn’t score enough runs – as simple as that. It was obviously a very good attack and once again away from home, we haven’t scored the runs.”