King: We Showed Mental Fortitude

West Indies head coach Bennett King spoke with the media after the team's training session in Karachi on Saturday morning. Following are excerpts from his comments:

On the Karachi pitch:

There is grass but we expect that it will be taken off in a couple of days. It looks like a pretty good batting track, slow but probably taking spin as we go along.

On how the players have been competing:

We are very determined. We have been on the road for three months and the boys played some of the best cricket on the fifth day when most sides would probably start to feel the effects of a long tour.

These boys have shown mental fortitude and I am very encouraged by the performance of the last game. We expect them to go from strength to strength.

On how the bowlers have feared in Pakistan:

I certainly think we extracted as much as we can out of the wickets and we have to make sure we maintain our line and disciplines and not just get frustrated that we are beating the bat or catches are going down. I think the pitch we just played on, we created enough opportunities and went past the bat enough to get edges. (Corey) Collymore bowled exceptionally well and had people edged the ball instead of missing it as often as they did the result would have been different.

On letting the heavy scoring Mohammad Yousuf off the hook early in his innings:

I think our bowling has not been too bad overall but we haven't taken our opportunities. We dropped him (Mohammad Yousuf) on 40-odd in the first Test and let him off the hook in the second Test as well. He is a good player and in form and we will certainly take care this time. If we take our opportunities we can be in a strong position again.

On the indifferent catching:

We had our opportunities and were in a strong position, I wouldn't say it was disappointing, we only have ourselves to blame for the result. We need to raise our fielding standards. The half chances, we have to make sure we take them.

On these types of wickets you don't get a lot of opportunities so when they come your way you need to make sure you take them.