West Indies Look To Put Pressure On New Zealand
Chris Gayle in action against Australia earlier this year.
©Action Images / Reuters / Andy Clark Picture Supplied by Action Images
After the opening match was washed at out at the Queenstown Events Centre, West Indies took a 1-0 lead at Christchurch and captain Chris Gayle says this match is like a final.
"You could say this is sort of a final," he said. "If we win, we go 2-0 and that would
put a lot of pressure on New Zealand. That's what we are aiming for.
"We have confidence and we have momentum. But we are not over-confident, We know we have to continue the hard work. We are looking for consistency and we are looking to carry on from where we left off in the last game and to even better our performance from that match.
"It has been a long time since we have been in the lead in a series so we will be looking to build on this start. We expect New Zealand to come at us hard, so we will be ready to hit back hard at them as well."
West Indies won in Christchurch after heavy rain and a hailstorm reduced the match to 28 overs per side.
"We had a lot of positives from the last match," Gayle enthused. "The bowling and the fielding were good and we saw the way how [Ramnaresh] Sarwan and [Denesh] Ramdin
batted to take us home. They took responsibility and put their hands up to make sure we got home."
Shivnarine Chanderpaul is still not fully fit but he continues his rehabilitation from the hand injury that has kept him out of the series thus far.
© Cricket World 2009
