Sarwan: A Well-Executed Win

West Indies vice-captain Ramnaresh Sarwan spoke with the media after the stunning victory over Australia in their first Group A game of the ICC Champions Trophy.

Sarwan sat in the media briefing for skipper Brian Lara who was suffering from lower back spasms which prevented him from taking the field for the Australian innings. Following are some of Sarwan's comments:

I thought it was well executed. In our plan we wanted to get in the region of 220 ? 230 because that is a score you could actually defend. The way the wicket has been playing, deteriorating as the game progressed, I thought we executed pretty well.

On whether he enjoyed the fill-in role of captaincy:

I wasn't too sure how much I was enjoying it but I was just relaxed and I had the full support of my team and that was really good. At no point in time did they actually leave me alone. If I called for help to make any decision they were always there for me so that really helped me throughout the game.

On when the Windies got back into the game during the Australian innings:

The partnership between [Adam] Gilchrist and [Michael] Clarke got them back into the game. We needed to break that partnership. When we got Clarke out and that really brought us back into the game, we stuck to our task and the spinners [Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels] bowled pretty well.

On the pitch:

It was fairly slow, it wasn't the best sort of pitch to bat on. It is the sort of pitch where you have to work very hard to get your runs.

On whether it was a surprise victory:

We beat the Australians last month in Kuala Lumpur, so it was a matter of keeping the momentum going. The win was no surprise for us.

On the decision for Lara to go in at number six:

Shiv [Chanderpaul] was missing from the line-up today and that meant a little bit of absence of experience from our top order. We tried to split up the experience batsmen especially with Brian and myself. But the way, Brian [Lara] and Runako [Morton] batted turned the game in our favour.