West Indies captain Christopher Gayle expressed delight that his team have managed to draw level in their four-match series against India with a win at Sabina Park yesterday.

The Windies defeated Indian by eight wickets in their second game of the series to pull level at 1-1. The West Indies restricted the Indians to 188 in 48. 2 overs, with pace bowler Ravi Rampaul taking career-best figures of 4 for 37. Rampaul was well supported by fellow fast bowlers, Jerome Taylor 3-35 from 9.2 overs and Dwayne Bravo 3-26 from nine overs.

India's captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was the leading scorer for his team with a patient 98 from 130 balls. Yuvraj Singh (35) and Rudra Pratap Singh (23) were the only other Indian batsmen in double figures.

Good effort

"We are glad that we have squared the series," said Gayle. It was a good effort from the guys because I think that Jerome Taylor and Ravi Rampaul set up the game for us and we are happy that we were able to get this victory and hopefully we can move from strength to strength," Gayle said.

The skipper added that he was also pleased with the way his pace bowlers were able to take advantage of the early moisture in the wicket.

"I think earlier there was a bit of moisture in the wicket and I thought that Jerome and Ravi as swing bowlers utilised the wicket conditions very well and our catching was also good, hopefully we can continue in this same vein and keep working at out game," he added.

Commendation

Gayle also commended India's captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni for the way he batted with his lower order batsmen.

"I must also give credit to Dhoni (Mahendra Singh) because I thought he batted very well with RP Singh because we just couldn't get the wicket that we wanted at that particular time," Gayle said.

"We just have to give credit where it is due but we were able to still restrict them for under 200 and always knew we were going to get this total in the end."

Meanwhile Dhoni believed poor shot selection by his batsmen cost them the game.

"I think that we should have shown a lot more respect towards the West Indies bowlers," he said.

"I think that the wicket was a bit different and the ball was swinging around a bit and it was not like the previous wicket, we didn't asses the wicket well, because we just went on with our strokes and that really caused our downfall," Dhoni said.

"Once we lost all those wickets earlier, the job you are doing it catching up, but RP Singh and me were able to get a partnership, or otherwise it would have been embarrassing for us," Dhoni noted.