Last Updated on 5 years by Charbel Coorey
West Indies skipper Jason Holder was all-praise for his team and man of the match, Shannon Gabriel, who finished with match figures of 9/137. He also described this as one of the best teams for the side and appreciated the bowlers for their execution of plans against the Joe Root-less England side.
“What Shannon has done in this game is nothing surprising. He is one of those guys who just keeps doing it. He has a big heart; a massive, massive heart. And he’s been through a lot and he wants success badly. His body has not held the way he has liked. To see him back fit, running in and bowling fast is always a pleasing sight. He deserves every bit of success he’s had so far in this game,” Holder said.
“He’s a rhythm bowler as well. So he needs to get some miles on the legs, and some rhythm into the legs. I know what he’s been through, we kept in contact when he was going through rehab. Some stage he was frustrated by how things were going, but he stuck it through. He had a good team behind him in Trinidad, done a lot of work with as well. Again he reaped the success that we all presumed he would have gotten just based on the calibre of bowler he is. We all know when Shannon is fit and healthy, he can be a handful and he proved difficult in this game.”
For us it is about just about managing Shannon as best as possible,” the skipper said as Gabriel played his first Test match in 12 months. The pacer had to prove his fitness in the warm-up matches to make into the squa after initially named in reserves.
Also read: England vs West Indies 1st Test: Key talking points

Jason Holder then praised his quicks and their never-say-die attitude. He pinpointed the fourth day as the key day where Windies got within sight of winning.
“It was a long, hard toil and a hard-fought day for West Indies. The reason I say it’s the best day, it’s mainly down to the fact that every single time I asked for an effort from those bowlers, no one said ‘I can’t or I’m too tired.’ They just all kept running in,” Holder said on the performance of the Windies pacers on Saturday.
“At that stage when Stokes and Zak were batting, the game looked like it was less likely for us to win. We knew we couldn’t lose, we back ourselves not to lose…but we wanted to win. We knew how important it was to win this game. So the longer they batted it obviously took time out of the game, maybe put them in a position where they had to think twice about declaring. Maybe after the game at Leeds… their declaration caused a bit of chatter as well. I’m not sure if they would have declared similarly, it was all up to Stokesy. But I think yesterday’s effort was by far the best effort I’ve seen by this group. We kept the energy up all through the day,” the skipper added.
“To beat England in England is not an easy feat. We were able to do that when we were here in 2017, so we know what that feels like. But things have changed drastically since then and they are a massive, massive unit in their backyard. To start the series this well is very very promising for us. And we feel very proud of the way we performed,” Holder believed.
Holder praised Roston Chase and Blackwood after they helped the West Indies recover after being reduced to 27-3 and still managed to win the game by four wickets.
“This morning when I woke up, I wanted to fast forward to the end of the day with us winning. At the start I guess there were a few nerves going through the dressing room. But Roston and Jermaine really, really settled those nerves down and got us into a position to lay a foundation. We knew once we had a partnership, the England bowlers would go flat. But credit to England, they threw a lot at us. Stokes, Anderson, Jofra, Mark – they all put in a hell of effort and they were all challenging.”
Holder said it was a great chance for the Windies to dominate the England batting order sans regular skipper Joe Root and they had plans in place for Stokes-led side ahead of the first Test.
“I think it was really important that we started the series well. I think England missing Root is a big miss, he’s a high quality player. We saw it as an opportunity to really get into their inexperienced batting line up. There was a lot of pressure on Stokes to score and to come big with the likes of young Ollie Pope and Jos Buttler in the lower half, the top order relies a lot on Rory Burns too, because he is quite solid, he soaks up a lot of balls and he makes bowlers fight really really hard for the wickets too. I think for us those four really stood out and we really needed to get them out as early as possible. We saw how Zak Crawley played really well but he had Stokes at the other end to form a partnership with, and he had a bit of a partnership with Joe Denly as well. So yes, credit to how well they played. It was no easy Test match. They kept coming, kept running in. To start the series well is a pleasing feeling but 10 tough days still left in the series,” Holder observed.
The two teams will now meet at Old Trafford Manchester on July 16 as England will look to equalize the three-match series and stay alive. The series is a part of World Test Championship and 40 points are on offer for every win in the series.
Written by Sarthak Karkhanis. Follow Sarthak on Twitter today.
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