Everybody know West Indies are Champions: Darren Sammy

In the post-match ceremony, an emotional Windies skipper opened up about the contractual problems the team had before the World T20.

“People were wondering, whether we would play this tournament or not, we had issues with the board. We felt disrespected by our board. Mark Nicholas called us players with no brain. But all of us came together; these 15 men put adversity aside, played this type of cricket in front of such passionate fans. It was tremendous. I want to thank the coaching team, Phil Simmons.

“Really happy for this win, it’s something we’ll cherish for a long time. I told before that we have 15 match winners in the team, but nobody gave us a chance. Somebody stepped up every game and took responsibility. To see Carlos Brathwaite play like that in his debut World Cup that shows the depth we have in the Caribbean in T20 cricket and hopefully by the right structure we can do better in ODIs and Tests,” Sammy said at the post-match presentation ceremony.”

Sammy also took a dig at the West Indies Cricket Board for not communicating with the players and termed it as “disappointing.”

“Got to give credit to the entire team here. This is for all the fans in the Caribbean. President Mitchell (Keith Mitchell, President of Grenada) send us an inspiring message. But, I am yet to hear from our cricket board and that’s very disappointing. I don’t know when I’m going to be playing for West Indies again, I want to thank my team, thanks my coaching staff. This is for the CHAMPIONS,” he said, referring to the Dwayne Bravo song.”

Man of the match Marlon Samuels, who scored 85 off 66 balls to take the team to victory, was also in great form in the post-match ceremony and lashed out at Shane Warne for criticizing him throughout the tournament.

“We are the champion again and this win is for the Caribbean. If we get a good start then I could definitely step on it. If we lose wickets early, so I could pace myself. “I woke up this morning and I had just thing one thing on the mind. Shane Warne has been talking and this (man of the match trophy) is for Shane Warne. I answer with the bat, I don’t answer with a mike,” said Samuels.

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Warne had criticized Samuels for his dismissal in the semi-final against India and slammed it as “poor and disappointing.”

When asked by Nasser Hussain about what he told Carlos Brathwaite in the last over, Samuels said that, “I just told him to swing and swing hard.”

England skipper Eoin Morgan also congratulated the Windies on the win and said that England were probably thirty to four runs short after batting first.

“First of all, I would like to congratulate Darren and his team. They played better cricket and deserved to win.

“We did not have enough runs on the board. It was a really good batting surface and we should have probably put 180-190 on the board. Samuel Badree is a fantastic bowler. We didn’t play him very well. We lost three early wickets, but the rebuilding helped us to put something on the board. The bowlers put us in a good position go into the last over, but it didn’t go our way.

“I am so proud of everyone in the squad. We showed an immense amount of character throughout the tournament, but we didn’t do probably enough. I truly believe this only a start of something special. We are looking into the future and we have a huge talent to work with,” said Morgan in the post-match ceremony.