Carlos Brathwaite hails senior players for support

Things have begun extremely well for newly-appointed West Indies T20 skipper Carlos Brathwaite. In spite of being the world champions at the moment, it is clear that the West Indies side and its cricket board is in turmoil. The 28-year old hailed the support he has received from his senior players in the side during his tenure as skipper of the Windies. Having been drafted into the squad only in 2011, Brathwaite now finds himself leading the likes of Chris Gayle, Andre Russell, Dwayne Bravo, and Samuel Badree.

In a statement released, Brathwaite claimed that the attitude of the senior players was indeed something that surprised him due to the support he received. “I want to make a public statement,” Brathwaite said, “As I said earlier about the senior guy’s attitude to sharing their knowledge and share information. Persons were apprehensive about the controversial way, in some people’s eyes, Carlos Brathwaite was brought into the role. I want to publicly mention the senior players in the team. They’ve all been positive, they’ve all been supportive, and whenever I ask for suggestions they’ve given me suggestions, and sometimes I don’t even have to ask and they were willing.”

“For a young man that means a lot to me, and let’s hope that it continues for as long as possible, and then I can, in turn, become a better leader and continue to lead West Indies successfully for years to come.”

I think I have grown as a leader over the last two games. Just rubbing shoulders with the sort of guys who captained four years in CPL thus far and we have three winning captains as well. So they have a history of winning games, they have a history of winn9ng tournaments. And for me to have the ability to rub shoulders and get knowledge from them put me in good stead going forward as a leader.”

Speaking of the rain in the second encounter, Brathwaite stated the importance of time. “You’re always working against time,” he noted. “Especially with the 40-minute delay beforehand it was always difficult to get the ground in readiness for coming back before the cut-off. So that was the major problem. If it would have dried we probably would have, but the fact that we were working against time was the biggest issue.

“As we said in one of the previous interviews, the equipment that obviously will be had in years to come because of the fantastic infrastructure already in place will then eliminate stuff like this from happening.”

Also read – West Indies v India 2nd T20I – India Player Ratings

“Runs on the board always run on the board and the spirit and the attitude that the guys had when the match was actually called off, is that India got a bit lucky with the rain. You can never know what happens in cricket. But we had the belief that we could go out there and defend the runs we had on the board.”

“It feels like home,” he remarked. “we want to make it a second home. I can speak for myself and I can speak for a few of the guys in the dressing room that had nothing but good things to say about the facilities. Even the police escorts. Everything is there around the cricket as you can see.”