Ramdin disappointed with batsmen

Dominica: West Indies skipper Denesh Ramdin has rued the failure of the batsmen after suffering a 1-2 series defeat against New Zealand. This was West Indies' second Test series loss against the West Indies in the Caribbean and Ramdin said that the batsmen were guilty of not converting their starts into a big score.

Speaking to the CMC (Caribbean Media Corporation), Ramdin said, ""In the first innings, all our top six-seven batters got starts and nobody went on to make that big hundred. It is all in the mindset, the way we apply ourselves. If we are content with 50 or 60, we need to be bigger men and come out and fight and show what we are made of. We need to carry on from those 50s and 60s and only be satisfied with big hundreds - 160, 150 - to put the team in a commanding position."

The West Indies skipper heaped praise on Jermaine Blackwood, Jason Holder and Kraigg Brathwaite for their positive show in the series. "Hopefully they can go from strength to strength and the senior guys can pull their weight a bit more. That will augur well for the team."

Meanwhile, Holder, who scored his maiden Test fifty in the third Test at Barbados, has expressed disappointment that he could not hang in there to save the team. "My goal was just to take the team to the end, whether it was a win or a draw. I thought I played really well, but unfortunately got out at the last stage," Holder said.

Chasing 308 for a series win, West Indies were reeling at 144/7 before Holder shared a 77-run stand with Shane Shilingford. He scored 52 and frustrated the New Zealand bowlers. With his dismissal, West Indies were bowled out for 254 and New Zealand won the match by 53 runs. "(We) needed to build a partnership to start and to wear down the New Zealand bowlers as much as possible, frustrate them as much as possible. I came in with [the last recognised batsman] Darren Bravo there and we tried to build a partnership, unfortunately Darren got out."

Holder expressed confidence that he could score runs in Test cricket and said that he needs to make some adjustments. "I need to leave a lot more balls outside off stump, know where my off stump is, whereas, in the one day game, you tend to like to feel the ball on the bat."

New Zealand round off their tour with a tw0-match T20I series in Dominica which will be played on July 5 and July 6.