The West Indies were blown away by South Africa by an innings and 220 runs.
They have lost key pacer Kemar Roach to an ankle injury which will keep him out of the second Test starting on Boxing Day.
And they have lost middle-order batsman Assad Fudadin to a hand injury.
Despite all of that, the West Indies skipper Denesh Ramdin maintained his confidence in his team to bounce back and put up a better fight in the second Test.
At the post match press conference Ramdin did not use Roach’s injury as an excuse for their poor first innings bowling effort which effectively gave their hosts the upper hand.
“I just don’t think we adjusted well enough to the pitches here,” said Ramdin.
“We bowled too short,” he insisted. “The first couple wickets we got on the first morning, the guys got caught behind. If we look back now we can see we bowled too short to AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla who scored many runs square of the wicket.”
The Windies picked up three South African wickets with the score on 57 before Amla and de Villiers put on over 300 runs for the fourth wicket with the South African skipper Amla going on to score a double hundred.
Asked if he felt that the tourist had the firepower to take 20 South African wickets, Ramdin said “We do believe we have the resources to take 20 South African wickets.
“Hopefully after this game we can refocus and in Port Elizabeth, we create some more chances,” he said.
“We’ll take the positives from this game and the memories of our last win in Port Elizabeth which will give us some confidence, but having said that cricket is played on the day.
Everyone has to bring their A-game being 1-0 down in this series. It’s tough to beat this No.1 South African team but hopefully we can give them a fight,” said Ramdin.
Speaking about their batting, Ramdin said: “We need to be more disciplined in the batting department and not go after wide balls and be smart.
“We know they’re a very good bowling lineup and we shouldn’t have given them any opportunities. We need to bat for longer sessions. It’s important for guys that get starts to carry on and get a big hundred. No one did that,” the West Indies skipper lamented.
